THE  WRITIN< 
ON  THE  WAL 


•  THE- 
NATION 

•  ON    • 
TRIAL 


TSHER  W 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


Gift  U.C.  LiUary 


THE  WRITING  ON 
THE  WALL 


©  Underwood  and  Underwood 


THE  COLORS 


THE  WRITING 
ON  THE  WALL 

THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 


BY 

ERIC  FISHER  WOOD 

Author  of  "The  Note  Book  of  an  Attache'" 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH 
PHOTOGRAPHS  AND  MAPS 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


Copyright,  1915,  1916,  by 
THE  CENTUHT  Co. 


Published,  January,  1916 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

Mr.  Wood  is  the  author  of  "The 
Note-Book  of  an  Attache."  He 
served  under  Mr.  Herrick  at  the  Amer- 
ican Embassy  in  Paris  during  the  first 
months  of  the  war.  He  witnessed  the 
mobilization  of  the  armies  of  the  French 
republic,  and  saw  these  armies  in  action 
along  the  Marne  and  the  Aisne  and  be- 
fore Calais. 

Later  he  traveled  as  a  bearer  of  des- 
patches through  England,  Holland, 
Germany,  Austria,  Switzerland  and 
Hungary.  He  has  observed  the 
French,  British,  Belgian  and  German 
troops  in  action,  and  in  addition  has 
seen  the  armies  of  Austria,  Switzerland, 
Hungary  and  Holland  on  a  war  foot- 
ing. 

He  has  made  a  very  thorough  first 
hand  study  of  the  Swiss  system  of  Na- 


557469 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

tional  defense,  both  in  peace  time  and 
upon  a  war  footing. 

His  military  knowledge  is  such  that 
he  has  not  only  made  detailed  reports 
to  the  army  war  college  in  Washington, 
but  has  by  request  delivered  lectures  on 
his  observations  and  conclusions  to  the 
general  staff  at  Governor's  Island  and 
to  the  officers  and  cadets  at  West  Point. 

In  "The  Writing  on  the  Wall"  he 
acts  as  unofficial  spokesman  for  our  pro- 
fessional military  authorities,  who  have 
much  of  vital  importance  to  tell  us 
about  Military  Preparedness  but  are 
prevented  from  speaking  for  themselves 
by  a  political  censorship  more  rigorous 
than  the  military  one  now  maintained 
in  Europe. 

Mr.  Wood,  though  reluctant  to  incur 
the  enmity  of  the  present  administra- 
tion, has  felt  impelled  to  write  as  fully 
and  justly  as  he  has  in  order  to  follow 
what  he  considers  his  line  of  duty 
towards  his  country. 


INTRODUCTION 

I  commit  myself  to  the  verdict  that 
no  civilian  is  competent  to  give  de- 
cisions in  military  matters.  It  there- 
fore becomes  necessary  to  explain  why 
I,  a  civilian,  am  hereby  delivering  my- 
self of  pronounced  opinions  on  these 
same  military  subjects. 

In  giving  reasons  for  the  immediate 
and  pressing  need  of  preparedness  to 
defeat  any  attack  upon  our  country,  I 
stand  on  my  own  recent  experiences  in 
Europe,  and  need  no  outside  prompt- 
ing. In  my  mind  are  scenes — terrible 
scenes  which  constantly  pass  across  my 
mental  vision — crying  out  their  warn- 
ings for  America. 

When,  however,  we  come  to  a  discus- 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

sion  of  the  means  by  which  such  prep- 
aration can  best  be  accomplished,  or 
by  what  method  we  may  soonest  protect 
ourselves,  I  am  absolutely  depending 
upon  expert  military  opinion.  While 
in  Europe,  during  the  first  seven  months 
of  the  great  war,  I  diligently  gathered 
in  every  country  I  visited,  from  every 
battle-field  I  studied,  and  from  every 
army-officer  I  interviewed,  all  data  or 
information  which  might  bear  upon  the 
situation  and  needs  of  my  own  country. 
The  conclusions  I  drew  from  these  ob- 
servations, and  the  plans  I  am  outlining, 
were  formulated  only  after  I  had  sub- 
mitted the  material  which  I  had  gath- 
ered to  the  judgment  of  the  army  and 
navy  authorities  of  the  United  States; 
only  now  that  my  opinions  and  conclu- 
sions have  been  modified,  revised,  and 
approved  by  our  highest  military  ex- 


INTRODUCTION  yii 

perts  do  I  feel  justified  in  presenting 
them  for  public  consideration. 

Therefore,  in  outlining  what  seems 
to  be  the  best  method  of  military  pro- 
tection for  our  own  country,  I  do  not 
violate  my  own  dictum  that  only  mili- 
tary experts  are  competent  to  give  ad- 
vice in  purely  military  matters,  since  I 
offer  not  my  own  opinion,  but  the  ver- 
dict of  competent  army-  and  navy-of- 
ficers whom  regulations  forbid  to  speak 
for  themselves.  None  of  us  realizes  our 
danger  more  absolutely  than  these  ex- 
perts ;  none  would  be  more  willing  to  in- 
struct their  countrymen ;  no  others  could 
be  better  fitted  to  show  us  our  errors  if 
they  were  not  subjected  to  a  censorship 
as  rigorous  as  that  which  now  prevails 
at  the  battle-front  in  Europe. 

Our  politicians,  in  order  to  protect 
themselves  from  the  exposure  of  their 


yiii          INTRODUCTION 

numerous  administrative  blunders, 
which  they  naturally  commit  when  they 
attempt  to  perform  duties  for  which 
they  are  utterly  unqualified,  have  muz- 
zled our  officers,  and  thus  the  only  men 
who  are  thoroughly  competent  to  reveal 
the  woeful  inefficiencies  of  our  army 
and  navy  are  forced  to  keep  silence. 
They  are  even  compelled  to  bear  the  dis- 
credit for  blunders  for  which  they  are 
in  no  way  responsible,  and  from  which 
they  would  protect  us  if  they  were  al- 
lowed freedom  of  speech.  Occasionally 
their  devotion  to  their  country  impels 
them  to  risk  everything  and  to  break 
through  this  senseless  barrier,  thereby 
injuring  the  reputations  and  the  polit- 
ical careers  of  some  of  our  well-known 
"statesmen."  The  fate  of  Admiral 
Fiske,  who  recently,  when  questioned 
before  a  congressional  committee,  dared 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

to  tell  unpleasant  truths  about  the  pres- 
ent lack  of  organization  in  our  navy, 
is  the  latest  warning  that  indiscreet  out- 
bursts of  truth  and  patriotism  will 
promptly  result  in  ruined  careers.  To 
muzzle  our  experts  on  national  safety  is 
almost  as  ridiculous  as  it  would  be  to 
force  the  Doctors  Mayo  to  keep  silent 
on  surgery,  or  to  forbid  Edison  to  speak 
about  electricity. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES   .     .      3 
II    PRECEDENTS      VERSUS      SOPHIS- 
TRIES       27 

III  PREPARATIONISTS       ARE       PACI- 

FISTS         47 

IV  A  WARNING  AND  AN  EXAMPLE  .     58 
V    ARMY    REFORM 74 

VI    THE   SWISS  SYSTEM       .     .     .     .     .86 
VII    EDUCATIONAL     IMPORTANCE     OF 

MILITARY  TRAINING       ....     97 
VIII    TEMPORARY  EXPEDIENTS     .     .     .105 
IX    THE  ESSENTIAL  BASIS  OF  ARMY 

AND   NAVY  REFORMS     ....  112 
X    ESSENTIAL  SUPPLEMENTARY  RE- 
FORMS      123 

XI    THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL     ....  133 
CONCLUSION 148 

APPENDIX 

PUBLIC   OPINION   ON   PREPARED- 
NESS   .  .  153 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Colors    ....         Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGH 

Comparative    Map   of   Europe   and   the 

United  States 28 

"The  Vulnerable  Heart  of  the  United 

States" 32 

Congressman  Augustus  P.  Gardner  .  40 
Congressman  Claude  Kitchin  .  .  41 
Theodore  Roosevelt  ....  72 
William  Jennings  Bryan  ...  73 
Rear  Admiral  Fiske  .  .  .104 

Josephus  Daniels  .  .  .  .  .105 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  .  .  .  .120 
President  Emeritus  Charles  W.  Eliot  136 


THE  WRITING  ON 
THE  WALL 

CHAPTER  I 

REALITIES   VERSUS   FANCIES 

NO  Americans  are  alive  to-day  who 
saw  Washington  burned  and 
sacked  in  1814,  and  few  still  live  who 
dwelt  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  in  1864. 
The  Americans  of  the  present  genera- 
tion have  passed  their  lives  in  quiet  pas- 
tures and  beside  the  still  waters.  It  is 
difficult  for  them  to  picture  what  war 
and  invasion  really  involve.  They  do 
not  clearly  distinguish  between  the  war 
of  history  and  romance  and  that  other 
3 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

war  which  is  hell.  They  fail,  for  in- 
stance, to  comprehend  that  it  is  not  the 
soldier  boy  who  suffers  most  in  war 
time,  but  the  women  of  an  unprepared 
country  who  in  the  day  of  reckoning 
have  no  trained  and  organized  bodies  of 
men  to  defend  them  from  the  poverty 
and  degradation  which  invariably  exist 
in  a  conquered  land. 

The  real  agony  of  war  is  endured  by 
the  civil  population  of  the  defeated  and 
invaded  nation;  beside  that  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  men  who  die  in  battle  is  as 
nothing.  The  suffering  of  the  civil 
population  stretches  out  beyond  its 
own  generation  to  future  generations, 
robbed  of  their  very  birthright;  it 
stretches  out  for  twenty-five,  fifty,  even 
a  hundred  years,  and  is  the  penalty 
which  a  nation  pays  for  being  over-con- 
fident and  unwilling  to  face  facts. 
4 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

With  the  exception  of  persons  like 
myself  whom  chance  has  thrust  amidst 
scenes  of  war  in  foreign  countries,  few 
living  Americans  have  beheld  the  hor- 
rible reality  with  their  own  eyes;  few 
have  seen,  and  therefore  few  have  un- 
derstood. We  who  have  worked  in  the 
ruined  countries  know  what  invasion 
means.  We  have  seen  the  proud  cities 
of  yesterday  to-day  smoldering  in 
ashes.  We  have  seen  nations  of  happy 
artisans  and  farmers  reduced  in  a 
twinkling  to  a  starving  mob  of  dumb 
creatures  whom  Fate  has  robbed  of  all 
the  fruits  of  a  life  of  faithful  toil.  We 
have  seen  dear  old  white-haired  men  and 
women  wandering  cold,  hungry,  and 
penniless  across  a  desolated  land.  We 
have  seen  refined  women,  the  elite  of  a 
nation,  insane  with  fear,  pain,  and  sor- 
row. We  have  seen  the  counterpart 
5 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

of  every  American  woman  we  know, 
alone,  unprotected,  and  hopeless,  with 
the  look  of  a  hunted  animal  in  her  eyes. 

Verily  the  supreme  agony  of  war  is 
not  to  be  found  on  the  march,  in  camp, 
nor  upon  the  field  of  battle. 

We  who  have  beheld  the  present  gi- 
gantic struggle  with  our  own  eyes  feel 
and  understand  how  far-reaching  it  is, 
and  how  much  more  far-reaching  it  may 
well  become.  When  we  return  from 
Europe  and  find  our  countrymen  ap- 
parently asleep  to  all  this,  we  are  ut- 
terly amazed  at  their  apathy.  We  be- 
come possessed  by  an  almost  irrepress- 
ible impulse  to  shake  them  until  they 
are  thoroughly  awake ;  we  long  to  open 
their  sleepy  eyes  to  the  full  significance 
of  such  facts  as  that  the  casualties  of 
the  first  year  of  this  war  are  probably 
greater  than  the  casualties  of  all  the 
6 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

other  wars  in  the  last  thousand  years; 
and  that  while  in  1815,  at  the  close  of 
the  last  world  war,  the  combined  total 
of  all  the  armies  of  the  allies  and  of 
Napoleon  numbered  only  250,000  men, 
the  armies  now  embattled  number  more 
than  one  hundred  times  that  many. 

That  last  world  conflict  eventually 
reached  across  the  broad  Atlantic  to 
bring  America  the  War  of  1812  and  the 
Louisiana  Purchase.  How  soon  may 
the  present  struggle  spread  across  the 
now  narrowed  ocean,  and  what  fate 
may  it  bring  to  America? 

We  who  have  beheld  the  very  letters 
of  the  writing  on  the  wall  and  have 
copied  them  down  to  bring  to  our  fellow 
countrymen,  are  met  with  reserve.  We 
are  called  jingoes,  the  one  thing  which 
men  who  have  looked  upon  the  actual 
face  of  war  can  never  be.  Having  seen 
7 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

the  suddenness  with  which  glowering 
war  may  burst  in  upon  a  tranquil  na- 
tion, we  are  surprised  to  find  Americans 
lacking  in  any  stronger  sentiments  than 
a  conventional  disapproval  of  the  viola- 
tion of  Belgium  and  an  equally  conven- 
tional pity  for  the  sufferings  of  the 
soldier  on  the  fighting  line.  We  are 
chiefly  impressed  by  the  fact  that  mod- 
ern Wars  are  such  complicated  affairs 
that  even  latent  power  is  valueless  if  it 
has  not  been  organized  in  advance. 
We  know  that  it  is  equally  useless  if 
it  has  been  wrongly  or  inefficiently  de- 
veloped. 

We  know  that  the  volunteer  system 
by  which  armies  are  organized  only 
after  the  beginning  of  hostilities  is  and 
always  has  been  a  total  failure.  We 
feel  it  to  be  significant  that  America's 
great  men  have  ever  opposed  it  even 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

since   the   very    birth    of   the   nation. 

Washington  inveighed  against  it;  so 
did  Hamilton  and  Monroe. 

In  1790,  Washington  said,  "In  time 
of  peace  prepare  for  war." 

Later,  in  the  first  year  of  his  Presi- 
dency, when  addressing  a  joint  session 
of  Congress,  he  cried,  "To  be  prepared 
for  war  is  one  of  the  most  effectual 
means  of  preserving  peace." 

Four  years  later,  in  his  annual  ad- 
dress, he  said:  "The  United  States 
ought  not  to  indulge  a  persuasion  that, 
contrary  to  the  order  of  human  events, 
they  will  forever  keep  at  a  distance 
those  painful  appeals  to  arms  with 
which  the  history  of  every  other  nation 
abounds.  There  is  a  rank  due  to  the 
United  States  among  nations  which  will 
be  withheld  if  not  absolutely  lost  by  the 
reputation  of  weakness.  If  we  desire 
9 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

to  avoid  insult,  we  must  be  able  to  repel 
it;  if  we  desire  to  secure  peace,  one  of 
the  most  powerful  instruments  of  our 
rising  prosperity,  it  must  be  known  that 
we  are  at  all  times  ready  for  war" 

In  1787,  Alexander  Hamilton  stated 
that  "the  rights  of  neutrality  will  only 
be  respected  when  they  are  defended  by 
an  adequate  power" 

In  1822  James  Monroe  said,  "The 
history  of  the  late  wars  in  Europe  fur- 
nished a  complete  demonstration  that 
no  system  of  conduct,  however  correct 
in  principle,  can  protect  neutral  powers 
from  injury  from  any  party;  that  a  de- 
fenseless position  and  distinguished  love 
of  peace  are  the  surest  invitations  to 
war;  and  that  there  is  no  way  to  avoid 
it,  otherwise  than  being  always  pre- 
pared and  willing,  for  just  cause,  to 
meet  it." 

10 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

Adequate  military  preparedness  for 
the  United  States  does  not  necessarily 
imply  the  possession  of  an  increased 
standing  army,  but  only  of  an  efficient 
military  system  for  defense.  It  may 
not  entail  for  America  a  larger  ex- 
penditure than  is  now  devoted  to  the 
maintenance  of  our  army.  It  does, 
however,  require  that  what  is  spent 
shall  be  efficiently  spent ;  it  implies  that 
our  military  budget  must  be  laid  out 
by  the  nation's  competent  military  ex- 
perts, and  not  by  party  politicians.  It 
means  that  the  safety  of  the  nation 
must  no  longer  be  a  prey  to  the  vaga- 
ries and  idiosyncrasies  of  political  the- 
orists and  charlatans. 

The  citizens  of  other  great  countries 

do  not  permit  their  politicians  to  juggle 

and   traffic   with   the   national   safety. 

Among  the  nations  of  the  earth  we  are 

11 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

almost  the  only  one  which  still  allows 
laymen  almost  entirely  to  manage  the 
expenditures  of  the  moneys  devoted  to 
national  defense.  In  consequence  our 
ineffective  standing  army  now  costs  us 
$100,000,000  a  year,  but  can  put  into 
the  field  to  protect  our  land  fewer  than 
50,000  men.  The  efficient  Swiss  sys- 
tem of  military  preparedness,  which  is 
run  by  trained  military  experts,  costs 
only  $8,000,000  a  year  in  peace  time, 
and  yet  can  promptly  put  into  the  field 
a  compact  army  of  more  than  400,000 
trained  soldiers.  This  comparison 
shows  that  it  costs  the  United  States 
one  hundred  times  more  per  year  for 
each  man  available  to  repel  invasion 
than  it  does  Switzerland. 

My  various  observations  and  experi- 
ences in  the  war  zone  have  led  me  to  a 
conclusion  that  is  concurred  in  by  each 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

and  every  American  who  has  had  op- 
portunity to  study  the  appalling  con- 
ditions now  prevailing  in  Europe,  which 
is  that  the  only  rational  insurance 
against  unprovoked  attack  is  adequate 
military  preparedness.  Among  the 
most  ardent  of  its  advocates  whom  I 
have  interviewed  since  the  war's  begin- 
ning are  Americans  who  had  journeyed 
to  Switzerland  as  delegates  to  an  inter- 
national peace  conference,  and  were 
there  caught  by  the  sudden  outbreak  of 
hostilities.  They  could  not  fail  to  per- 
ceive that  adequate  military  prepared- 
ness, and  that  alone,  had  saved  Switzer- 
land from  war.  They  still  demand 
peace,  but  they  now  demand  it  at  the 
price  of  preparedness. 

There   are   very    strong   arguments 
against  our  possessing  a  large  standing 
army,  but  there  is  no  valid  argument 
13 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

against  adequate  military  prepared- 
ness. In  this  country  those  who  do 
not  demand  better  preparation  for  na- 
tional defense  have  either  not  had 
sufficient  opportunity  to  study  the  mat- 
ter, or  they  suffer  from  a  mental 
blind  spot — a  blind  spot  like  that  which 
renders  the  habitual  criminal  incapa- 
ble of  seeing  that  crime  does  not 
pay. 

The  nations  of  the  earth  have  entered 
upon  a  political  era  of  cold-blooded  ag- 
gression wherein  burglary  and  violation 
are  ordinary  proceedings  and  wherein 
the  individual  nations  are  acting  with 
brutal  selfishness.  Each  works  solely 
for  its  own  interest,  and  without  the 
least  consideration  for  the  interests  of 
others. 

Germany's  violation  of  Belgium  is, 
alas!  only  typical  of  this  era.  It  has 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

become  notorious  in  the  eyes  of  Amer- 
ica because  Germany  happens  to  be  the 
nation  which  gave  the  first  and  most 
spectacular  demonstration  of  the  mod- 
ern political  immorality.  In  the  more 
recent  months  of  the  war  neither  Great 
Britain  nor  Russia  has  shown  any  re- 
spect for  neutrality.  They  violated  it 
just  as  Germany  violated  that  of  Bel- 
gium. One  of  the  chief  differences 
between  Germany's  violation  of  Bel- 
gium and  the  Allies'  more  recent  vio- 
lation of  Greece  is  that  Greece  valued 
existence  more  highly  than  honor. 

It  has  many  times  been  shown  that 
any  great  nation  will  unhesitatingly 
violate  the  neutrality  of  a  country 
which  is  unprepared  vigorously  to  de- 
fend herself.  Even  the  United  States 
did  not  arbitrate  with  Colombia  over 
Panama;  nor  did  our  forefathers  ar- 
15 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

bitrate  with  the  American  Indians, 
driven  step  by  step  from  the  land  they 
loved  and  in  which  they  had  lived  for 
a  thousand  years ;  nor  did  the  Southern 
States  arbitrate  with  the  unprepared 
Union. 

No  world  power  of  to-day  would 
arbitrate  any  vital  matter  with  Amer- 
ica, for  whatever  an  enemy  coveted 
she  could  take  from  us  by  force  as 
easily  as  an  efficient  thug  lifts  a  wallet 
from  a  fat  millionaire,  unworthy  heir 
of  virile  grandsires.  Never  will  Great 
Britain,  Russia,  Germany,  or  Japan  ar- 
bitrate a  vital  dispute  with  America  if 
they  have  power  to  dispense  with  arbi- 
tration and  smash  us  to  our  knees  with 
a,  sudden  blow. 

To  expect  arbitration  without  pre- 
paredness is  ridiculous;  it  is  indeed  a 
contradiction  of  terms.  How  much 
16 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

would  it  avail  a  sheep  to  propose  arbi- 
tration to  his  butcher! 

A  sacred  agreement  resulting  from 
solemn  arbitration  is  certainly  of  far 
greater  value  than  any  mere  prospect 
of  arbitration,  for  it  is  the  realization  of 
the  most  sanguine  hopes  of  the  arbi- 
trators. Yet  within  this  very  year  past 
the  futility  of  depending  solely  upon 
such  agreements  has  been  proved  upon 
the  naked  bodies  of  unprepared  Bel- 
gium, Persia,  and  China.  When  the 
war  broke  out,  brave  and  thrifty  Swit- 
zerland was  fully  prepared  to  defend 
her  freedom  and  her  honor,  despite 
the  fact  that  both  were  already  "pro- 
tected" by  the  most  solemn  interna- 
tional treaties  of  fair-minded  arbitra- 
tors. 

Belgium,  preoccupied  with  business 
affairs  and  with  money-making,  trusted 
17 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

almost  entirely  to  sacred  treaties,  also 
the  product  of  calm  arbitration.  For 
America  the  fate  of  Belgium  is  as  a 
writing  on  the  wall  which  plainly  pro- 
claims that  the  only  valid  insurance 
against  unprovoked  attack  is  adequate 
military  preparedness.  Had  Belgium 
been  adequately  prepared  to  resist  mili- 
tary aggression,  then  and  then  only 
would  Germany  have  respected  arbi- 
tration and  its  sacred  treaties,  and  have 
invaded  France  across  the  Franco- 
German  border. 

Despite  sentimental  exaggeration  in 
the  Allied  press,  the  Belgian  army  was 
so  small  and  ill  prepared  that  it  suc- 
ceeded in  retarding  the  main  German 
advance  into  France  only  about  four 
days.  Theoretically,  the  Belgian  first 
line  of  fewer  than  80,000  men  could  be 
reinforced  by  as  many  more  reserves, 
18 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

just  as  our  line  in  America  is  theoreti- 
cally backed  by  many  thousand  militia. 
Actually,  Belgium's  reserves  were  so 
inefficiently  organized  that  few  of  them 
ever  got  into  action,  and  those  that  did 
were  nearly  useless. 

Treaties  between  nations  are  like 
contracts  between  persons:  an  unscru- 
pulous person  will  refrain  from  break- 
ing a  contract  only  when  the  penalty 
attached  thereto  is  greater  than  the 
gain.  This  is  so  generally  recognized 
that  men  invariably  attach  penalty 
clauses  to  contracts  which  they  make 
with  one  another. 

The  only  penalty  attached  to  the  vio- 
lation of  the  contract  for  Belgium's 
neutrality  was  the  insufficient  one 
of  British  intervention.  From  Ger- 
many's point  of  view  the  possibility  of 
this  intervention  did  not  offset  the 
19 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

manifold  advantages  to  be  gained  by 
a  surprise  attack  upon  France,  which 
would  result  in  confining  the  horrors  of 
war  to  the  enemy's  territory. 

Had  Belgium  been  prepared  to  de- 
fend her  borders  this  fact,  added  to  the 
probability  of  British  intervention, 
would  have  constituted  a  prohibitive 
penalty;  for  it  should  be  remembered 
that  even  a  small  country  may  success- 
fully defend  herself  from  invasion. 
Serbia  for  more  than  a  year  defiantly 
held  at  bay  the  united  power  of  Aus- 
tria-Hungary and  Germany,  and 
finally  succumbed  only  when  she  was 
stabbed  in  the  back  by  Bulgaria,  also 
a  breaker  of  sacred  treaties.  Owing 
to  the  scientific  deadliness  of  modern 
weapons  it  is  possible  to  defend  a  fron- 
tier with  fewer  than  2000  men  per  mile, 
if  these  men  have  been  properly  trained 
20 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

and  organized.  It  is,  for  instance,  a 
well-known  fact,  in  military  circles,  that 
Germany  has  for  a  year  held  the  west- 
ern battle-line  of  nearly  six  hundred 
miles  with  fewer  than  900,000  men,  al- 
though opposed  by  the  entire  armies  of 
France  and  Great  Britain;  and  a  Ger- 
man staff  officer  boasted  to  me  that  they 
could  hold  it  against  the  world.  A 
small  country  may  defend  herself 
against  a  big  assailant,  because  her 
frontiers  are  short  in  proportion  to  her 
correspondingly  small  number  of  men 
of  military  age. 

Belgium's  case  and  its  applicability 
to  the  United  States  may  be  aptly  illus- 
trated by  the  following  example:  bur- 
glars are  unscrupulous  persons  who 
consider  that  the  prospective  gain  inci- 
dental to  robbing  houses  is  greater  than 
the  penalty  attached  to  the  breaking  of 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

their  implied  contract  with  society,  the 
penalty  being  the  danger  of  arrest  and 
prosecution  by  the  police.  My  own 
family  residence  is  situated  in  a  New 
York  City  block  which  has  of  late  years 
been  a  favorite  raiding-ground  for  sum- 
mer burglars,  who  have  made  a  prac- 
tice of  breaking  into  and  pillaging 
houses  left  unoccupied  during  the  hot 
months.  My  father,  concluding  from 
this  circumstance  that  the  New  York 
police  did  not  constitute  a  sufficient 
penalty  clause,  prudently  decided  to  be 
prepared,  and  so  every  summer  he  has 
had  the  house  wired  by  a  protective  as- 
sociation. The  association's  sign  in  the 
front  window  furnished  a  threat,  which 
taken  in  conjunction  with  the  danger 
of  arrest  by  the  regular  police  force, 
protected  the  house  from  attack  for  sev- 
eral summers,  during  which  many 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

neighboring  unprepared  houses  were 
looted. 

In  the  summer  of  1915  the  elec- 
tricians who  wired  the  house  tempo- 
rarily neglected  to  place  their  warning 
sign  in  the  window,  thus  removing  the 
visibility  of  the  threat. 

A  few  nights  later,  a  burglar  mounted 
the  front  stoop,  "jimmied"  the  outer 
door,  and,  entering  the  vestibule,  be- 
gan the  destruction  of  the  lock  of  the 
inner  door. 

The  instant,  however,  that  he  had  at- 
tacked the  outer  door,  an  alarm  had 
been  rung  at  the  central  office  of  the 
protective  association,  and  two  private 
detectives  had  departed  on  the  run. 
While  on  their  rapid  way  to  the  house 
they  were  joined  by  the  corner  police- 
man. The  three  together  greatly  out- 
numbered the  thug,  whom  they  over- 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

powered  on  the  very  threshold  and 
frontier  of  the  house,  which  he  had  not 
yet  succeeded  in  entering.  As  he  was 
led  away  to  prison  he  protested  vehe- 
mently that  it  was  unfair  to  wire  a 
house  without  posting  it  with  warning 
notices. 

To  apply  this  illustration  to  Bel- 
gium, the  British  army  may  be  repre- 
sented by  the  corner  policeman  and  the 
two  detectives  may  represent  the  rea- 
sonable military  preparedness  for  lack 
of  which  her  house  was  broken  into. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  Germany  could 
ever  have  been  ignorant  of  the  exact 
state  of  Belgium's  preparedness;  but 
could  such  have  been  the  case,  Ger- 
many, repelled  from  the  Belgian  fron- 
tier, would  doubtless  have  been  as  in- 
dignant as  the  burglar  who  was  being 
led  to  prison. 


REALITIES  VERSUS  FANCIES 

In  America  we  are  at  present  in  a 
worse  state  than  was  Belgium  in  Au- 
gust, 1914,  for  we  have  not,  as  she  had, 
treaties  against  invasion  guaranteed  by 
other  nations — which  would  represent 
in  a  sort  the  corner  policeman. 

It  is  probable  that  within  the  next 
thousand  years  there  will  be  evolved 
some  system  of  international  police  ca- 
pable of  furnishing  a  sufficient  penalty 
to  insure  the  observance  of  treaties.  I 
no  more  think  of  gainsaying  this  than 
of  denying  that  within  the  same  time 
the  New  York  police  may  perhaps  con- 
stitute a  penalty  clause  capable  of 
deterring  robbers.  No  system  of  in- 
ternational police  can  however  be  ef- 
fective until  each  separate  nation  is 
prepared  to  do  its  share  towards  main- 
taining universal  peace,  backing  its 
promises  by  power  to  enforce  them. 


In  the  meantime,  both  our  country  and 
our  houses  are  in  need  of  reasonable 
defensive  preparation. 

America,  however,  still  persistently 
refuses  to  read  the  writing  on  the  wall. 
To  the  countries  engaged  in  the  great 
European  struggle,  America  seems 
wilfully  to  have  closed  her  eyes  to  the 
extent  and  dangers  of  the  present  crisis. 


CHAPTER  II 

PRECEDENTS   VERSUS   SOPHISTRIES 

TO-DAY  the  United  States  is  the 
single  peaceful-minded  great  na- 
tion of  the  earth;  she  stands  unpro- 
tected amid  a  gang  of  calculating  in- 
ternational robbers.  Although  no  such 
thing  as  a  police  force  of  nations  yet 
exists,  she  nevertheless  refuses  to  arm 
herself,  because,  as  she  naively  de- 
clares, she  has  no  desire  to  attack  any 
of  the  burglars. 

She  lives,  as  it  were,  in  a  time  of  pes- 
tilence, when  all  her  neighbors  have  al- 
ready been  smitten  with  disease,  and 
yet  she  fatuously  claims  that  it  will  be 
time  enough  to  begin  to  train  physicians 
27 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

when  the  black  death  grips  her  own  vi- 
tals. 

She  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  great- 
est conflagration  of  history,  which  sur- 
rounds and  already  scorches  her,  and 
yet  idiotically  maintains  that  it  will  be 
time  enough  to  organize  fire  depart- 
ments when  her  own  house  catches  fire. 

Her  people  know  little  and  care  less 
about  the  complications  of  international 
diplomacy,  and  remain  serenely  con- 
fident that  the  question  of  war  or  no 
war  will  ever  rest  in  their  own  hands. 
And  yet  within  the  last  two  decades 
every  important  nation  in  the  world  has 
been  involved  at  least  once  in  a  war 
"to  the  finish,"  and  Russia,  Turkey, 
Japan,  and  Great  Britain  have  partici- 
pated not  merely  in  one  such  war,  but 
in  two.  Despite  this,  America's  lead- 
ing politicians  still  stick  their  pudgy 
28 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

hands  into  the  breasts  of  their  frock 
coats  and  loudly  orate  that  for  Amer- 
ica war  is  obsolete.  Our  Government 
allows  more  than  eighteen  months  of 
world  war  to  pass  without  taking  or 
even  seriously  considering  a  single  es- 
sential step  toward  an  adequate  system 
of  national  defense. 


There  is  no  valid  argument  against 
adequate  military  preparedness. 

The  anti-preparationists  try  hope- 
lessly to  defend  their  theories,  but 
though  eternally  routed  from  position 
after  position,  they  ever  refuse  to  sur- 
render to  reason.  As  a  rule  they  begin 
their  argument  by  maintaining  that  ar- 
bitration is  the  never-failing  panacea. 
When  driven  from  that  untenable 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

ground,  they  retreat,  crying  that  our 
"mighty"  navy  could  easily  prevent  any 
hostile  army  from  landing  on  our 
shores.  When  a  score  of  adverse  facts 
are  pointed  out  to  them,  such  as  that  we 
are  constructing  torpedoes  at  a  rate 
that  would  allow  each  tube  in  our  navy 
to  fire  only  one  torpedo  every  six 
months,  and  that  Great  Britain  can 
more  than  reproduce  the  effective  ships 
of  our  fleet  once  every  year,  they 
promptly  retreat  to  their  next  position ; 
they  maintain  that  our  country  is  too 
big  to  be  conquered,  neglecting  the 
patent  fact  that  our  very  immensity 
makes  us  the  more  vulnerable  to  attacks 
and  raids. 

It  is  probable  that  few  of  us  realize 

how  large  our  country  really  is.     How 

many  know  that   California  is  more 

than  three  times  as  big  as  England,  or 

30 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

that  Wyoming  and  Colorado  are  to- 
gether as  large  as  the  German  Empire? 
How  many  realize  that  the  United 
States  is  nearly  as  large  as  the  entire 
continent  of  Europe,  as  the  accom- 
panying map  will  show? 

Consider  what  Germany  might  have 
accomplished  with  her  unexpected  of- 
fensive of  1914,  if  instead  of  the  nar- 
row boundaries  of  France,  Belgium, 
and  Switzerland  to  choose  from  she  had 
had  the  entire  contour  of  Europe,  or 
of  America,  from  which  to  select  a 
point  of  attack. 

Let  us,  however,  meet  the  anti-prep- 
arationists  upon  their  own  ground. 
They  point  with  pride  to  the  immensity 
of  the  United  States  and  remark  cheer- 
fully that  mere  size  would  prevent  its 
subjection.  I  used  to  argue  in  that 
way  myself  until  February,  1915. 
31 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

Then  while  in  Berlin  I  tried  it  in  dis- 
cussion with  a  staff  officer  of  the  Ger- 
man army.  After  a  moment's  hesita- 
tion, he  said  in  his  slow,  accented  Eng- 
lish: 

"It  is  true  that  your  country  is  very 
large;  but  its  heart  is  very  small  and 
very  vulnerable,  and  you  must  remem- 
ber, my  friend,  that  in  nations,  as  in 
individuals,  the  body  falls  if  the  heart 
is  struck.  Let  us  get  a  map;  I  will 
show  you." 

An  atlas  was  brought,  and  he 
pointed  out  to  me  the  vulnerable  breast 
of  my  country.  He,  a  foreigner,  in- 
structed me  in  the  political  geography 
of  my  own  native  land.  He  drew  a 
line  from  the  north  of  Chesapeake  Bay 
up  the  Potomac  to  its  upper  reaches 
and  from  there  along  the  foot  of  the 
AUeghanies,  through  Gettysburg,  to 


Probible  limit  of  Invulon  **44  +  +  -4- 
CaplUU  of  >ute> * 


THE   VULNERABLE   HEART  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

Harrisburg  on  the  Susquehanna,  and 
along  that  river  to  a  point  near  Scran- 
ton.  From  there  he  skirted  the  foot  of 
the  Catskills  through  Sullivan  County 
to  Kingston,  and  thence  passed  rapidly 
along  that  river  and  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain  to  Canada. 

This  marks  out  the  first  great  con- 
tinuous natural  line  of  defense  which 
exists  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  six  hundred  miles  in 
length,  being  about  as  long  as  the  bat- 
tle-line now  drawn  across  France  from 
the  North  Sea  to  the  Alps.  But  the 
present  battle-front  in  western  Europe 
lies  entirely  across  featureless  country 
except  for  the  short  stretch  along  the 
"river"  Aisne,  a  stream  which  any  self- 
respecting  American  farmer  would  call 
a  "crick."  It  has  therefore  been  neces- 
sary to  construct  trenches  that  amount 
33 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

to  almost  siege  fortifications  along 
every  foot  of  its  length.  By  contrast 
the  dead-line  across  the  Northeastern 
States  comprises  only  two  hundred  and 
fifteen  miles  of  land,  while  the  remain- 
ing three  hundred  and  eighty-five  miles 
follow  such  effective  natural  barriers 
as  the  Potomac,  Susquehanna  and 
Hudson  rivers,  and  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain,  none  of  which  can 
well  be  classified  as  creeks.  Such  a  line, 
once  occupied,  could  easily  be  held  by 
400,000  trained  troops  against  any 
army  in  the  world.  An  enemy  landing 
at  various  points  along  the  coast,  could 
defeat  the  feeble  forces  which  America 
could  immediately  oppose  to  him,  and, 
having  defeated  them,  immediately  ad- 
vance to  this  dead-line.  There  once 
established,  can  it  be  doubted  that  he 
could  hold  it  against  that  mythical  one 
84 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

million  men  who  Mr.  Bryan  declares 
would  spring  to  arms  between  sunrise 
and  sunset?  The  best  result  that  un- 
prepared America  could  hope  to  achieve 
would  be  a  guerilla  warfare  in  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  Alleghanies,  the  Catskills, 
and  the  Adirondacks,  which  might 
bring  disaster  to  the  enemy's  daring 
cavalry  raids  against  Buffalo,  Pitts- 
burgh, and  intermediate  points. 

The  territory  of  the  United  States 
lying  to  the  east  of  this  dead-line  is 
about  one  half  of  the  area  which  Ger- 
many now  holds  in  Russia.  It  com- 
prises only  about  100,000  square  miles, 
or  less  than  half  the  total  area  of 
France.  It  is  only  three  per  cent,  of 
the  whole  United  States.  It  is  not 
nearly  as  large  as  the  single  State  of 
Montana.  With  the  enemy  holding 
this  dead-line,  the  country  east  of  it 
35 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

would  become  a  second  Belgium, 
wherein  the  slightest  resistance  or  in- 
subordination on  the  part  of  individual 
men  would  result  in  the  visitation  of 
dire  reprisals  upon  entire  communities. 
Although  this  eastern  region  is  in 
area  only  three  per  cent,  of  the  United 
States,  it  is  verily  the  heart  of  our  coun- 
try, for  it  contains  nearly  all  the  fac- 
tories which  might  be  converted  into 
munition  producers,  the  principal  navy 
yards,  and  the  war  colleges;  the  head- 
quarters of  our  general  staffs ;  the  capi- 
tals of  the  States  of  Maine,  Vermont, 
Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  Massachu- 
setts, New  Hampshire,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Maryland,  Delaware,  and 
Pennsylvania;  the  executive  centers  of 
all  our  great  industries ;  New  York,  the 
richest  city  in  the  world;  Washington, 
the  capital  of  our  country,  containing 
36 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

all  the  machinery  of  national  govern- 
ment; half  the  wealth  of  the  country; 
and  twenty-five  million  people. 

If  this  heart  of  America  should  be 
seized  by  an  invader,  the  plight  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole  would  be  desperate. 

The  paralyzation  of  its  industries 
and  its  Government  would  be  beyond 
the  wildest  imaginings  of  the  most  sen- 
sational alarmist.  Within  a  week  the 
country  would  revert  to  the  conditions 
of  its  pioneer  days,  when  every  man  was 
fully  and  completely  occupied  in  the 
struggle  to  provide  life-sustaining  food 
for  his  family  and  himself.  The  fugi- 
tive President  would  be  the  only  re- 
maining vestige  of  government;  from 
his  refuge  in  St.  Louis  or  thereabouts 
he  would  be  forced  to  make  peace  on 
any  terms  and  at  any  price,  just  as  the 
Government  of  France,  when  in  1871 
37 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

it  replaced  the  deposed  and  dishonored 
Napoleon  III,  was  compelled  to  buy 
peace  on  the  enemy's  own  terms  in  or- 
der to  free  Paris  and  northern  France 
from  the  German  armies  that  had 
caught  her  off-guard  and  unprepared. 
Our  country  could  be  forced  to  pay  an 
indemnity  large  enough  to  refill  the 
greatest  war-chest  or  to  finance  two  or 
three  European  wars.  In  addition,  it 
would  be  plundered  of  Alaska's  lumber 
and  gold,  of  Mexico's  minerals,  and  of 
Panama,  Hawaii  and  Cuba,  the  politi- 
cal and  commercial  keys  of  the  Western 
Hemisphere. 

Verily  the  grinning  thug  would  have 
made  a  rich  and  rapid  haul  from  the 
fat,  defenseless  heir  of  virile  fighting 
grandparents. 

His  victim  would  have  had  no  time 
for  argument. 

38 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

A  speedy  peace  would  be  necessary 
not  merely  to  redeem  a  hundred  cities 
and  a  hundred  billion  dollars'  worth  of 
property,  but  in  order  to  liberate  25,- 
000,000  hostages,  cut  off  by  the  invad- 
ing army  from  their  accustomed  food 
supply.  The  inhabitants  of  the  second 
Belgium  would  have  had  no  time  to  es- 
cape in  the  terrible  disorder  and  con- 
gestion which  always  accompany  inva- 
sion, a  confusion  which  would  be  in- 
creased through  the  destruction  of 
crucial  bridges  and  tunnels  by  the 
enemy's  spies  and  raiders.  When  in 
the  autumn  of  1914  the  Teutons  ap- 
proached Paris,  all  the  common  car- 
riers running  out  of  the  city  became  so 
disorganized  that  the  only  means  of  es- 
cape left  to  the  masses  was  to  travel  on 
foot.  The  plan  of  invasion  which  I 
have  here  outlined  was  included  in  an 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

article  which  appeared  in  the  Century 
Magazine  for  November.  It  imme- 
diately evoked  ridicule  from  various 
anti-preparationists,  and  the  Hon. 
A.  P.  Gardner,  Representative  from 
Massachusetts,  wrote  to  Admiral 
Dewey — the  sole  American  officer  who 
is  in  position  to  make  public  statements 
as  to  the  nation's  military  and  naval 
needs — asking  him  for  an  expression  of 
opinion  upon  my  statements. 

Admiral  Dewey's  reply,  read  by  Mr. 
Gardner  in  his  speech  to  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  December  16,  was 
in  part  as  follows : 

"Dear  Mr.  Gardner: 

"I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letter  of  December  9  asking  me  to 
write  you,  setting  forth  my  views  on  the 
question  of  the  possibility  of  large 
hostile  forces  landing  on  our  coast  and 
40 


©  Brown  B 


CONGRESSMAN  AUGUSTUS  P.  GARDNER 
Leader  of  the  cause  of  Preparedness  in  the  House  of  Representatives 


Photograph  bj  Clinedmat,  Washington 

CONGRESSMAN  CLAUDE  KITCHIN 

Leader  of  the  Opposition  to  Preparedness  in  the 

House  of  Representatives 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

inviting  my  attention  to  an  article  by 
Eric  Fisher  Wood. 

"The  part  of  the  Atlantic  coast  men- 
tioned in  Mr.  Wood's  article  extends 
from  Eastport,  Me.,  to  Cape  Henry, 
Va.  ...  It  is  true  that  a  large  hostile 
force  can  land  on  the  open  coast  wher- 
ever transports  can  get  within  a  reason- 
able distance  of  the  shore,  especially  so 
where  their  landing  is  covered  by  the 
gun-fire  of  the  naval  escort  even  though 
the  landing  be  opposed  by  troops.  .  .  . 
From  Eastport,  Me.,  to  Cape  Henry, 
Va.,  there  are  but  very  few  places  where 
large  ships  cannot  approach  to  within 
two  miles  of  the  coast.  .  .  . 

"They  would  prefer  to  land  where 
there  are  no  railroads,  and  good  roads 
leading  to  their  objective,  which  would 
probably  be  one  of  our  large  cities. 
Such  places  are  numerous  along  the 
coast  of  Massachusetts,  both  shores  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  the  eastern  and 
southern  shores  of  Long  Island,  and 
41 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

in     the    Delaware     and     Chesapeake 
Bays.  .  .  . 

"Our  main  defense  and  protection 
from  invasion  must  always  rest  with 
the  navy,  which  must  ever  remain  our 
first  and  best  line  of  defense.  This 
defense  unless  adequate  is  impotent; 
and  as  before  stated  adequacy  is  not 
reached  until  the  navy  is  strong  enough 
to  meet  on  equal  terms  the  navy  of  the 
strongest  possible  adversary. 

"Sincerely  yours, 
"GEORGE  DEWEY." 

Driven  from  their  contention  that 
America  is  too  big  to  be  conquered,  the 
anti-preparationists,  disregarding  the 
fact  that  preparedness  is  not  a  tem- 
porary issue,  maintain  that  when  the 
present  war  is  over,  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope will  be  exhausted  and  therefore 
of  necessity  harmless.  But  this  is  not 
true.  The  precedents  of  history  prove 
42 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

the  exact  reverse  to  be  the  case.  Na- 
tions are  never  so  strong  morally  and 
politically  and  their  armies  are  never 
so  effective,  as  immediately  following 
a  long  conflict. 

"Practice  makes  perfect."  Greece 
was  never  stronger  than  after  Plataea 
and  Salamis,  nor  Rome  than  after 
the  Second  Carthaginian  War.  The 
Netherlands  were  politically  most  pow- 
erful at  the  termination  of  forty  years 
of  combat  with  Spain,  during  which 
they  were  on  the  receiving  end  of  nearly 
every  blow. 

In  1862  France  dared  to  disregard 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  invade 
Mexico  to  protect  her  citizens  from  per- 
secution by  the  irresponsible  savages 
who  inhabited  that  territory.  In  1865 
she  meekly  agreed  to  abandon  Mexico 
and  Maximilian,  for  even  Napoleon  III 
43 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

had  no  wish  to  try  conclusions  with  the 
veteran  army  that  marched  down  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  on  May  23,  1865. 

A  nation  may  begin  a  war  with  five 
million  soldiers,  and  a  year  later  may 
have  lost  one  million  of  them,  but  half 
of  the  survivors  could  probably  defeat 
an  unseasoned  army  of  five  millions. 

It  is  true  that  at  the  end  of  a  long 
war  a  nation's  credit  is  poor,  but  this  is 
not  vital.  It  means  that  large  prices 
must  be  paid  for  loans.  It  does  not 
mean  that  loans  cannot  be  obtained. 
If  a  nation  has  in  prospect  a  profitable 
victory  it  can  obtain  large  loans. 

Driven  from  this  last  position,  anti- 
prep  arationists  announce  that  they 
would  not  defend  even  their  ideals  and 
their  conception  of  right  by  force  of 
arms.  They  advocate  immediate  and 
complete  surrender  in  case  of  attack — 
44 


PRECEDENTS  VERSUS  SOPHISTRIES 

a  well-intentioned  perversion  of  the 
turn-the-other-cheek  principle.  This 
willingness  to  be  a  part  of  a  nation's 
martyrdom,  while  it  may  indicate  a 
kind  of  passive  courage,  is  largely  born 
of  lack  of  imagination,  an  utter  inabil- 
ity to  picture  the  fruits  of  such  a  pol- 
icy. 

If  it  were  typical  of  the  esprit  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole;  if  it  were  not  con-- 
trary  to  the  laws  of  our  domestic  life, 
to  the  workings  of  our  National  Gov- 
ernment and  to  our  historic  traditions, 
such  a  policy  would  be  infinitely  pref- 
erable to  our  present  one  of  combining 
an  aggressive  diplomatic  tone  with  utter 
physical  helplessness. 

It  might  be  possible  to  buy  off  each 

successive  antagonist  by  handing  over 

to  him  whatever  he  happened  to  covet, 

just  as  one  child  is  thrown  from  a  flee- 

45 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

ing  Russian  troika  to  delay  the  pursu- 
ing wolves,  and  save  the  others. 

But  our  nation  is  neither  meek  nor 
soft-spoken.  Its  citizens  are  proud, 
impatient  of  restraint  and  discipline, 
and  quick  to  resent  an  injury.  They 
could  not  be  made  to  tolerate  out- 
side interference,  much  less  an  invasion. 
They  would  not  hesitate  to  attack  with 
their  bare  hands  any  invaders  even 
though  these  enemies  were  incased  in 
armor,  and  bore  gleaming  swords  in 
their  mailed  fists. 


CHAPTER  III 

PREPARATIONISTS   ABE   PACIFISTS 

THE  people  of  the  United  States 
are  not  divided  into  pacifists  and 
jingoes.  All  Americans  desire  peace, 
and  differ  only  as  to  the  best  means  of 
securing  it,  or  disagree  as  to  the  meas- 
ure of  honor  or  dishonor  with  which  we 
may  buy  that  peace.  It  is  most  natu- 
rally that  we  should  all  earnestly  desire 
peace  since  we  have  everything  to  gain 
by  peace  and  much  to  lose  by  war. 

Both  the  preparationist  and  the  anti- 
preparationist  are  pacifists.  The  lat- 
ter is  an  idealist,  who  making  the  wish 
father  to  the  thought,  believes  only  that 
which  it  is  pleasant  to  believe.  The 
47 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

former  tries  to  search  out  the  unvar- 
nished truth  and  having  found  it  deter- 
mines to  face  it  bravely,  whether  it  be 
pleasant  or  unpleasant.  He  does  not 
try  to  persuade  himself  that  helpless- 
ness is  any  protection  from  invasion. 

America  has  always  been  a  peace-lov- 
ing nation.  In  none  of  the  wars  of  her 
history  has  she  been  the  aggressor.  At 
Concord  that  first  shot  which  was 
"heard  round  the  world"  was  not  fired 
by  the  colonists.  In  1846  it  needed  a 
horror  like  the  massacre  of  the  Alamo 
before  our  Government  would  face  the 
necessity  of  dealing  rigorously  with 
Mexico.  In  1861  the  majority  of  the 
people  in  the  North  were  still  declaring 
that  the  South  would  never  under  any 
circumstances  resort  to  arms  when  the 
cannon  at  Fort  Sumter  cut  short  their 
foolish  predictions. 
48 


PREPARATIONISTS    ARE    PACIFISTS 

We  have  ever  in  the  past  had  war 
forced  upon  us,  and  have  ever  been  un- 
prepared to  meet  it.  We  shall  most 
certainly  have  wars  forced  upon  us  in 
the  future.  Shall  we  continue  to  be 
unprepared  to  meet  them? 

Due  to  fortunate  combinations  of 
circumstances  we  have  not,  in  four  of 
the  five  wars  of  our  history,  reaped  the 
full  penalty  of  our  unpreparedness. 
We  emerged  victorious  from  the 
Revolution  and  the  War  of  1812  be- 
cause Spain  and  France  waged  war 
against  England  at  the  same  time  and 
gave  us  vital  aid,  choosing  those  crucial 
moments  to  be  avenged  for  old  quarrels 
with  England. 

We  won  the  wars  of  1848  and  1898 
only  because  we  were  pitted  against 
weak  nations. 

Our  one  terrible  lesson,  the  only  les- 
49 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

son  the  penalties  of  which  were  com- 
mensurate with  our  neglect,  was  the 
Civil  War.  In  1860  our  need,  as 
demonstrated  by  contemporaneous  ex- 
ponents of  preparedness,  was  for  a  com- 
pact standing  army  of  not  more  than 
100,000  men.  To  any  one  who  studies 
the  history  of  that  epoch  it  must  be  evi- 
dent that  had  we  possessed  such  an 
army,  the  Civil  War  need  never  have 
been  fought.  Some  military  authori- 
ties even  go  so  far  as  to  state  that  a  sin- 
gle efficient  army  corp  of  30,000  men 
would  absolutely  have  prevented  that 
war,  in  which  a  million  men  lost  their 
lives.  Our  troops  could  have  sup- 
pressed the  disorder  in  the  South  long 
before  it  reached  armed  conflict,  and 
forced  the  South  to  settle  its  differences 
with  the  Government  at  Washington 
by  arbitration. 

50 


PREPARATIONISTS    ARE    PACIFISTS 

America  is  so  large  that  she  has  no 
need  to  fight  for  more  territory,  as 
Japan  and  Germany  have  fought  and 
will  fight;  she  is  so  rich  that  she  has  no 
temptation  to  strive  for  indemnities; 
and  she  is  too  proud  to  indulge  in 
quarrels  over  trifles.  May  she,  how- 
ever, never  be  unready  to  hold  her 
boundaries  against  an  enemy  or  to  pro- 
tect herself  from  invasion!  May  she 
likewise  ever  be  prepared  to  defend  the 
ideals  for  which  she  stands!  A  nation 
without  vigorous  ideals  is  a  nation  unfit, 
a  nation  doomed  to  destruction.  Con- 
quered nations  have  sometimes  regained 
their  freedom,  but  no  nation  without 
ideals  to  defend,  and  the  will  to  defend 
them,  has  long  survived. 

If  after  the  battle  of  Concord  the 
majority  of  our  colonial  ancestors  had 
been  Tories  (the  pacifist  of  1776)  and 
51 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

had  voted  peace  at  any  price,  we  should 
now  be  taxed  without  representation, 
be  ruled  by  a  nation  which  would  allow 
us  no  general  manhood  suffrage,  and 
our  territory  would  still  be  subject  to 
huge  land  grants  which  reserved  vast 
areas  for  nonresident  nobility.  By  ac- 
cepting the  gage  of  battle,  we  won  lib- 
erty and  established  a  great  nation. 
We  even  freed  all  England's  colonies 
from  the  tyranny  against  which  we 
fought,  for  by  that  bitter  lesson  we 
taught  her  the  wisdom  of  granting  au- 
tonomy to  her  daughters;  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  inhabitants  of  Can- 
ada, Australia,  New  Zealand,  and 
South  Africa  to-day  really  enjoy  more 
freedom  than  the  inhabitants  of  Eng- 
land herself.  As  regards  human  lib- 
erty, we,  by  the  Revolution,  set  forward 
the  hands  on  the  clock  of  time  at  least  a 
52 


PREPARATIONISTS    ARE    PACIFISTS 

century.  We  even  did  England  her- 
self a  service;  for  in  her  present  need, 
when  she  is  struggling  to  maintain  her 
privileges,  opportunities,  and  ideals,  she 
is  supported  by  a  group  of  strong  and 
loyal  colonies  because  she  has  long  al- 
lowed them  to  share  with  her  those 
privileges,  opportunities,  and  ideals. 

No  price  that  can  be  counted  in  dol- 
lars, pounds,  or  francs  is  too  great  to 
pay  for  peace.  No  price  that  will  build 
up  an  adequate  navy  and  an  efficient 
army  is  too  great.  We  all  desire  that 
America  may  have  as  few  wars  as  pos- 
sible, but  we  must  face  that  fact  that  she 
cannot  always  avoid  wars. 

Even  to-day  one  may  perceive  sev- 
eral causes  pregnant  with  the  possibil- 
ity of  future  hostilities  for  the  United 
States.  Mexico  is  one;  South  Amer- 
ica, coveted  by  Germany,  but  protected 
53 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

by  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  is  another; 
still  a  third  exists  in  the  fact  that  our 
western  labor  unions  refuse  to  allow  us 
to  grant  equal  rights  to  certain  Orien- 
tals because  of  racial  antagonism  and 
because  these  Orientals,  being  more  in- 
dustrious and  efficient  than  the  average 
American  day  laborer,  are  willing  to 
work  for  lower  wages.  The  labor 
unions,  making  might  their  right,  have 
caused  laws  to  be  passed,  the  object  of 
which  is  to  keep  their  State  for  their 
own  use  by  rendering  it  virtually  im- 
possible for  the  Orientals  to  compete 
with  them  industrially.  The  might 
upon  which  this  right  is  founded  cannot 
go  forever  unchallenged.  Sooner  or 
later,  in  ten  years  or  in  ten  decades,  it 
may  have  to  be  tested  by  a  trial  of  arms. 
If  the  case  between  the  California  labor 
unions  and  the  Oriental  immigrants 
54 


PREPARATIONISTS   ARE    PACIFISTS 

were  to  be  submitted  to  fair  and  impar- 
tial international  arbitration,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  Orientals  would  win  the 
decision,  but  it  is  evident  that  our  Gov- 
ernment could  not  accept  such  a  deci- 
sion against  the  will  of  its  own  people. 
Thus  from  time  to  time  differences 
arise  between  nations  which  cannot  be 
peacefully  arbitrated.  When  a  rich 
nation  is  politically  weak,  while  a  neigh- 
boring country  is  poor  and  cramped  but 
politically  powerful,  the  latter  will  pos- 
sess itself  of  the  former's  territory,  as 
inevitably  as  water  runs  down  hill. 
The  attack  will  come  the  more  quickly 
if  racial  differences  render  the  two  na- 
tions naturally  antagonistic.  It  makes 
little  difference  whether  the  rich  nation 
has  become  relatively  weak  through  race 
degeneration  or  through  fatuous  neg- 
lect of  her  defenses.  The  invasion  of 
55 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

France  by  the  Norsemen,  the  overrun- 
ning of  the  Roman  Empire  by  the  bar- 
barians, and  the  recent  nibblings  at 
China  by  many  nations,  are  conspicuous 
examples  among  many  to  be  found  in 
history.  The  English,  in  the  days  of 
sailing  ships  and  voyages  around  the 
cape,  traveled  some  ten  thousand  miles 
to  conquer  India,  a  country  at  that  time 
thirty  times  larger  than  England  both 
in  area  and  in  population,  but  disor- 
ganized and  defenseless.  The  Ameri- 
cas, Australia,  and  Africa  have  in  suc- 
cession been  conquered  by  invasions 
from  Europe,  until  they  are  to-day  en- 
tirely held  by  European  races  or  their 
descendants. 

History    itself   is,    in   the    broadest 
sense,  nothing  but  a  record  of  successive 
conquests  won  over  nations  lacking  suf- 
ficient military  preparedness. 
56 


PREPARATIONISTS    ARE    PACIFISTS 

No  distance  has  ever  been  great 
enough  to  protect  any  race  or  nation 
from  attack. 

Uncoordinated  bulk  has  ever  been  a 
danger  rather  than  a  protection.  La- 
tent but  disorganized  resources  are 
valueless.  China  is  potentially  the 
most  powerful  nation  of  the  world,  but 
this  fact  has  in  no  way  retarded  her  dis- 
possession. Like  India  she  would  long 
since  have  been  entirely  gobbled  up  had 
it  not  been  for  the  mutual  jealousies  of 
her  assailants. 


67 


CHAPTER  IV 

A   WARNING  AND   AN   EXAMPLE 

DURING  the  present  war  the 
terms,  struggle  for  existence,  and 
survival  of  the  fittest,  have  been  often 
used,  but  have  had  read  into  them 
strange  meanings  never  warranted  by 
any  of  the  scientists  of  the  evolutionary 
school. 

The  horrors  of  the  great  conflict 
have  shaken  the  world  out  of  its  ha- 
bitual ruts  of  thought,  and  bewildered 
by  the  destruction  of  many  of  its  old 
formulae,  peoples  and  nations  are  trying 
to  find  some  underlying  principle  which 
will  at  least  sound  like  an  explanation 
58 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

of  the  inexplicable  things  happening  in 
Europe.  Thus  many  writers  have  de- 
clared that  Germany,  in  her  present 
methods  of  frightfulness,  was  simply 
putting  into  practical  use  Darwin's 
theory  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
where  brute  force  was  the  supreme  ap- 
peal in  which  all  the  considerations  of 
humanity  and  the  results  of  civilization 
were  to  be  thrown  aside  until  ruthless 
barbarity  would  become  the  determining 
factor  of  national  survival. 

To  ascribe  such  a  doctrine  to  Darwin 
or  to  any  leading  evolutionist  is  mon- 
strous. The  injustice  to  Darwin  is  of 
minor  importance,  but  that  the  excite- 
ment of  war  should  bring  into  promi- 
nence phrases  that  give  a  dangerous 
twist  to  public  thought  is  a  thing  that 
ought  not  to  go  on  without  a  protest. 

In  point  of  fact,  even  every  half- 
59 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

baked  college  boy  knows  that  Darwin 
never  taught  that  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test either  meant  that  the  best  survived, 
or  that  the  physically  most  powerful  sur- 
vived. He  simply  held  that  in  each  era 
those  individuals  survive  and  perpetuate 
themselves  who  are  best  able  to  profit 
by  or  adapt  themselves  to  the  particu- 
lar conditions  which  environ  them. 

For  confirmation  of  the  law  that  sur- 
vival, national  as  well  as  individual,  de- 
pends on  the  ability  to  fit  oneself  to  meet 
surrounding  conditions,  we  need  not 
draw  upon  the  imagination,  lean  on 
theories,  nor  delve  into  ancient  history, 
since  the  most  striking  examples  of  the 
practical  working  of  that  law  have  been 
demonstrated  both  positively  and  nega- 
tively before  our  eyes — in  the  cases  of 
Japan  and  China. 

The  American  after  dinner  attitude 
60 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

of  mind  is  that  we  rescued  Japan  from 
semi-barbarism  and  politely  invited  her 
to  enter  into  the  circle  of  civilized  na- 
tions. In  point  of  fact  for  long  genera- 
tions before  Perry's  ship  entered  the 
Bay  of  Yedo,  the  Japanese  had  been  an 
educated,  civilized  and  cultured  people. 
The  form  of  their  civilization  was  a  little 
out  of  date  it  is  true,  being  feudal  in 
type  and  non-militant  in  spirit. 

They  had,  wisely  or  unwisely,  some 
two  centuries  before  decided  that  their 
civilization  was  superior  to  that  of  sur- 
rounding nations. 

They,  therefore,  deliberately  decided 
to  protect  themselves  from  any  unde- 
sirable outside  influences  and  taking 
the  only  possible  way  to  avoid  conform- 
ing to  or  coming  in  competition  with 
neighboring  races  they  closed  their  gates 
and  shut  themselves  inside  the  narrow 
61 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

limits  of  their  island  home.  No  for- 
eigner was  allowed  to  enter;  if  he  came 
in  by  accident  as  shipwrecked  soldiers 
occasionally  did,  he  was  never  again 
permitted  to  leave.  If  a  Japanese  de- 
parted secretly  from  his  native  land  he 
was  not  allowed  to  return. 

Japan  thus  furnishes  the  most  im- 
portant example  of  a  deliberate  attempt 
to  escape  the  law  that  the  survival  of 
a  nation  depends  upon  adapting  it- 
self to  its  environment.  Her  experi- 
ment was  even  temporarily  successful. 
It  was,  however,  possible  only  so  long 
as  oceans  remained  barriers  of  isolation, 
when  they  became  highways  of  com- 
munication, her  defiance  of  natural  Jaw 
broke  down. 

As  long  as  we  Americans  continue  to 
pat  ourselves  on  the  back,  and  clasping 
hands  across  the  Pacific,  exhibit  Japan 
62 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

as  our  ward  whom  we  invited  into  the 
family  of  civilization  we  completely  lose 
the  whole  point  and  lesson  of  the  historic 
incident.  Indirectly  we  did  bring  ul- 
timate benefits  to  Japan,  for  which  she 
is  now  justly  grateful  and  which  are 
powerful  reasons  for  closer  and  closer 
unity  between  the  two  peoples,  but  at 
the  time  it  was  quite  different;  Japan's 
one  desire  was  to  be  left  to  herself  to 
preserve  her  feudal  system,  to  elaborate 
her  complicated  ceremonials,  and  to  de- 
velop her  great  art.  If  our  entrance 
into  Japanese  affairs  was  such  a  love 
feast,  why  did  we  force  our  way  into  her 
harbors  with  warships? 

The  negotiations  extending  over  some 
years  were  carried  on,  it  is  true,  with 
due  regard  to  diplomatic  usages,  many 
friendly  and  flattering  speeches  were  ex- 
changed, but  the  bare  fact  remains  that 
63 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

our  warships  and  their  guns  made 
somber  background  for  much  glitter- 
ing ceremony.  We  meant  to  open  the 
ports  of  Japan;  most  certainly  by 
friendly  means  if  possible,  but  the  Japa- 
nese understood  the  background  of  war- 
ships, and  realized  that  they  were  no 
longer  able  to  prevent  invasion.  With 
their  feudal  form  of  government  and 
their  obsolete  weapons,  they  were  pow- 
erless before  us.  In  one  moment  they 
were  forced  to  face  the  consequence  of 
having  so  long  defied  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion by  which  nations  as  well  as  individ- 
uals must  conform  to  the  rules  of  the 
game. 

Had  the  Japanese  been  barbarians  or 
even  uncivilized  they  would  have  gone 
under ;  they  were,  however,  then  as  now, 
a  brainy,  resolute,  patriotic  and  fear- 
less people.  The  humility  of  submit- 
64, 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

ting  to  demands  which  they  dared  not 
refuse,  and  were  powerless  to  resist, 
sank  deep  into  the  public  consciousness. 
With  marvelous  self-control  they  cov- 
ered their  wounded  pride  under  cour- 
teous phrases  and  patiently  bided  their 
time. 

Their  whole  subsequent  history  is  a 
conscious,  deliberate,  and  determined  ef- 
fort, and  a  most  successful  one  to  make 
up  for  lost  time,  and  thoroughly  to  fit 
themselves  as  a  nation  for  survival  in 
the  environment  into  which  America 
had  forced  them  to  enter. 

They  worked  rapidly  but  never  too 
rapidly  for  thoroughness.  Investigat- 
ing first  and  executing  afterwards,  they 
did  not  stumble  or  blunder,  nor  con- 
ceitedly try  to  develop  along  their  ob- 
solete lines.  Revering  national  tradi- 
tions, reverencing  ancient  customs,  lov- 
65 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

ing  the  arts  of  peace,  they  yet  threw 
away  everything  that  was  an  obstacle 
to  an  assured  national  existence. 

In  any  field  of  accomplishment  they 
asked  only  what  was  the  best,  and  hav- 
ing decided  that  question,  they  promptly 
adopted  it,  thus  profiting  by  hundreds 
of  years  of  experiment  which  has  been 
conducted  by  other  nations.  For  navy, 
they  modeled  after  England;  for  army, 
after  Germany;  in  electricity  and  rail- 
roads, they  called  on  America;  for  art 
inspiration  they  had  long  since  looked  to 
China — that  they  did  not  at  the  reor- 
ganization replace  it  by  occidental  meth- 
ods amply  prove  that  they  deemed  that 
inferior  to  their  own. 

Early  in  the  program  for  Japanese 

re-creation  it  was  found  that  progress 

was  blocked  by  the  feudal  organization 

of  the  people,  involving  class  division 

66 


which  could  not  be  bridged.  Judging 
that  a  constitutional  monarchy  was  the 
best  form  of  government  for  the  new 
Japan,  it  became  necessary  to  abolish 
these  class  distinctions — what  France 
accomplished  only  after  the  bloody  revo- 
lution and  England  has  even  now  only 
imperfectly  secured  after  centuries  of 
struggle,  Japan  accomplished  in  a  sin- 
gle day.  In  1876  after  several  years 
warning,  she  abolished  the  Samurai 
class,  discontinued  the  pensions  they 
had  through  generations  enjoyed,  and 
made  it  illegal  for  them  longer  to 
wear  the  swords  which  had  been  the  in- 
signia of  their  rank  as  members  of  the 
noble  class. 

The  leveling  of  the  highest  class  ac- 
complished, it  next  became  necessary 
to  raise  the  lowest  class  of  despised 
yeta  to  honorable  citizenship,  and  to 
67 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

recognition  as  fellow  countrymen.  This 
it  was  hoped  to  accomplish  through  ele- 
mentary compulsory  education  where 
all  the  children  would  be  constantly  as- 
sociated; but  when  the  public  schools 
were  opened  it  was  found  that  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Samurai  class  would  not 
study  beside  the  yeta  children,  where- 
upon some  of  the  highest  nobles  of  the 
country  patriotically  solved  the  ques- 
tion by  going,  themselves,  into  the 
schools  and  sitting  on  the  benches  be- 
side the  despised  little  outcasts. 

Thus  did  Japan  ruthlessly  abandon, 
cut  out,  or  destroy  anything  in  her  na- 
tional life  which  might,  in  the  struggle 
for  national  existence,  render  her  less 
fit  to  survive.  No  other  nation  except 
France  has  so  freed  herself  from  obso- 
lete forms  and  hampering  traditions, 
and  France  gained  her  emancipation 
68 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

only  through  the  most  terrible  revolu- 
tion of  history. 

Japan's  patriotism  permitted  her  to 
reconstruct  her  forms  of  government, 
and  abolish  all  privileged  classes  with 
calmness  and  courage,  and  without 
bloodshed.  Her  reward  for  bringing 
herself  into  harmony  with  the  law  of 
evolution  is  that  she  has  been  able,  not 
only  to  preserve  her  national  existence, 
but  materially  to  enlarge  her  borders 
and  to  take  her  rightful  rank  as  one  of 
the  great  nations  of  the  earth. 

She  realized  that  she  had  to  sacrifice 
many  beloved  ideals  to  worldly  economic 
fitness  if  she  wished  to  continue  to  ex- 
ist. 

With  Japan's  progress  is  contrasted 
China's  inertia.  What  she  was  fifty 
years  ago  she  practically  is  to-day;  un- 
wieldy, uncoordinated  and  self-satis- 
69 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

fied.  Out  of  harmony  with  the  law  of 
survival  she  would  long  ago  have  fallen 
to  pieces  of  her  own  weight  if  mutual 
jealousies  among  the  powers  had  not 
kept  her  together  by  outside  pressure. 
Many  nations  have  nibbled  at  her  bor- 
ders, and  the  first  one  that  has  a  free 
hand  will  annex  her  bodily.  Latently 
she  is  the  most  powerful  nation  of  the 
earth,  not  only  on  account  of  her  vast 
population  and  great  area,  but  more  es- 
pecially because  she  is  an  old  race,  wise 
in  many  things  little  known  to  occi- 
dental peoples.  She  has  forgotten 
much  and  neglected  more  that,  if  or- 
ganized, would  be  of  vital  use  in  a  na- 
tional emergency.  Her  people  are  the 
personification  of  economy,  patience 
and  tenacity.  There  are  at  present 
some  signs  of  an  awakening  in  China's 
centuries  of  sleep.  What  future  policy 
70 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

she  develops,  depends  very  much  upon 
Japan,  whose  armed  hand  at  present  lies 
heavy  on  her  unprotected  body.  Until 
China  complies  with  the  law  of  survival 
by  adapting  herself  to  conditions  as 
they  are  to-day,  the  question  of  her  na- 
tional existence  lies  not  in  her  own 
hands,  but  in  the  hands  of  those  na- 
tions who  have  already  adjusted  them- 
selves in  harmony  with  fundamental 
evolutionary  laws. 

In  an  era  when  all  the  surrounding 
nations  are  armed,  if  one  country  delib- 
erately decides  not  to  fit  herself  to  meet 
this  condition,  she  cannot  hope  to  sur- 
vive whether  her  name  be  China  or  the 
United  States  of  America. 

If  I  seem  in  a  work  of  preparedness 
for  America  to  have  given  an  undue  pro- 
portion of  space  to  Japanese  conditions, 
it  is  not  by  accident,  but  because  Japa- 
71 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

nese  prowess  and  progress  has  an  im- 
mediate and  most  vital  bearing  on  our 
own  requirements  for  army  and  navy 
increase.  Japan  as  our  friend  and  well- 
wisher  would  be  a  powerful  national  as- 
set. As  an  enemy  or  even  as  a  neighbor 
with  a  grievance  she  must  remain  a  seri- 
ous menace.  We  in  America  need  first 
to  have  better  comprehension  of  her  val- 
uable qualities  as  a  co-worker  and  a 
truer  estimate  of  her  power  as  an  an- 
tagonist. Understanding  the  proud 
spirit  of  her  people  we  ought  to  hesitate 
to  wound  that  pride. 

England,  who  of  all  nations,  has  the 
farthest  sight  in  matters  of  diplomacy 
made  a  defensive  treaty  with  Japan  as 
early  as  1902;  the  later  treaty  of  1905 
was  in  1911  renewed  for  ten  years 
longer. 

Japan  is  not  a  rich  country,  and  her 
72 


©  Underwood  and  L'nde 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Preparationist 

With  Mr.  Roosevelt  are  shown  also  the  Russian  and  Japanese  Peace 
Commissioners  who  met  in  America  in  1905. 


V 


©  Underwood  and  Underwood 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 

Anti-Preparationist 


WARNING  AND  EXAMPLE 

resources  were  much  strained  by  the  war 
with  Russia.  We  may,  however,  be  sure 
that  she  will  fight  in  the  future,  as  she  has 
in  the  past,  whenever  her  national  pride 
is  submitted  to  too  great  humiliation. 

Moreover  she  is  always  prepared  to 
fight  if  needs  must  be.  Her  army  is 
kept  at  high  efficiency.  She  is  steadily 
increasing  her  navy.  Her  political  im- 
portance in  the  world's  counsel  insures 
to  her  valuable  allies.  Her  medical 
corps  is  a  model  for  the  whole  world  and 
she  has  had  experience  in  three  wars. 

Most  important  of  all,  she  possesses 
a  united,  devoted  and  intensely  patriotic 
people,  to  every  one  of  whom  any  form 
of  self  sacrifice  for  the  country's  safety, 
is  a  joy  and  consecration. 

The  Japanese  have  universal  service 
and  universal  enthusiasm  in  military 
luty. 

73 


CHAPTER  V 

AEMY  REFORM 

IN  determining  America's  specific  re- 
quirement for  adequate  national  de- 
fense, we  should  first  estimate  the  num- 
ber of  troops,  together  with  all  neces- 
sary supplies,  ammunition,  and  horses, 
which  could  by  an  enemy  be  landed 
upon  our  coast  within  a  given  time.  In 
this  connection  it  is  necessary  to  con- 
sider as  possible  opponents  not  only 
Japan  and  Germany  but  all  the  other 
powerful  nations  of  the  world,  for  his- 
tory shows  that  the  friends  of  to-day 
may  be  enemies  to-morrow,  or  that 
enemies  of  this  year  may  be  friends  the 
next.  Japan  and  Russia  are  to-day 
74 


allies,  who  ten  years  ago  were  bitterest 
enemies,  while  Bulgaria  and  Serbia, 
who  together  defeated  Turkey  in  1912, 
have  since  that  time  already  fought 
against  each  other  in  one  war  and  are 
now  in  the  throes  of  another. 

Before  an  enemy  who  attacks  us  can 
transport  troops  overseas,  he  must  have 
almost  complete  control  of  those  seas. 
Therefore,  if  we  could  be  certain  that 
no  hostile  war  fleet  could  ever  deprive 
us  of  control  of  our  oceans,  we  might 
dispense  with  military  preparedness 
beyond  that  needed  to  protect  our  out- 
lying possessions  and  our  Canadian  and 
Mexican  borders.  Conversely,  if  we 
cannot  be  certain  of  commanding  the 
two  oceans,  we  must  build  up  an  army 
of  sufficient  size  to  discourage  invasion. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  since 
we  possess  two  long  and  widely  sepa- 
75 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

rated  coast  lines,  we  cannot  be  even 
moderately  certain  of  maintaining  sea 
control  unless  we  constantly  maintain  a 
navy  virtually  twice  as  large  and  effec- 
tive as  the  navy  of  any  other  nation. 

One  man  at  the  Panama  might  with 
dynamite  cut  our  navy  in  two.  A  land- 
slide would,  and  several  times  has,  ac- 
complished the  same  result. 

Moreover,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  no  navy,  however  large  it  is,  can 
absolutely  be  counted  to  maintain  con- 
trol of  the  seas.  In  a  day  the  Merrimac 
gained  control  of  the  sea  for  the  Con- 
federacy; and  within  a  few  hours  the 
Monitor  won  it  back  again.  The  day 
Great  Britain  launched  the  first  dread- 
nought the  other  navies  of  the  world 
became  obsolete,  and  so  remained  until 
they  too  acquired  ships  of  the  dread- 
nought class;  since  a  single  dread- 
76 


nought  could  sink  a  fleet  of  predread- 
noughts. 

To  possess  a  large  navy  reduces  the 
chances  of  invasion.  The  larger  navy 
a  country  possesses,  the  less  likely  is  she 
to  lose  sea  control,  and  the  fewer  na- 
tions or  coalitions  of  nations  need  she 
fear.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  how- 
ever, that  in  the  present  war  even  the 
second  navy  of  the  world  has  been  un- 
able to  leave  the  shelter  of  its  fortified 
harbors,  and  the  war  is  in  consequence 
being  fought  out  entirely  on  land. 

It  would  be  inadvisable,  if  not  im- 
possible for  America  to  maintain  a 
navy  larger  than  that  of  any  other 
nation.  Her  geographical  situation 
makes  it  peculiarly  difficult  for  a  navy 
alone  to  protect  her  from  attack.  She 
is  therefore  compelled  to  possess  also 
adequate  land  forces. 
77 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

Having  determined  that  our  navy 
cannot  be  counted  upon  to  protect  us 
from  all  attacks,  we  must  next  consider 
the  scope  of  possible  invasions  and  try 
to  determine  the  minimum  defense 
which  would  be  necessary  to  meet  them 
with  success.  Japan,  the  most  power- 
ful nation  on  our  west,  using  only  half 
her  merchant  fleet  as  transports,  could 
in  four  weeks  land  one  hundred  thou- 
sand men  and  twenty-five  thousand 
horses  on  our  Pacific  coast,  and,  as  ad- 
ditional vessels  became  available,  could 
in  each  succeeding  period  of  six  weeks 
land  another  detachment  of  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  thousand  men  and 
thirty-five  thousand  horses. 

Any  one  of  the  several  militant  na- 
tions on  our  east  could  land  much  larger 
forces  in  less  time.  Germany,  for  in- 
stance, could  by  using  less  than  half  her 
78 


ARMY  REFORM 

merchant  marine,  in  two  weeks  land 
half  a  million  men  and  fifty  thousand 
horses  on  our  Atlantic  seaboard.  And 
in  each  succeeding  month  would  be  able 
to  land  an  army  of  six  hundred  thou- 
sand men. 

These  figures  are  based  upon  of- 
ficial statistics.  Lloyd's  Register  for 
1914-15  credits  Germany  with  5,090,- 
331  gross  tons  of  steel  merchant  ships. 
The  regulations  of  the  German  army 
do  not,  however,  permit  the  use  of 
steamers  of  less  than  2000  gross  tons 
for  the  transportation  of  troops;  of 
such  ships  Germany  possesses,  accord- 
ing to  Lloyd,  4,018,185  tons. 

The  Japanese  Field  Service  Regula- 
tions specify  that  three  gross  tons  are 
sufficient  to  transport  a  man  and  all 
equipment  and  supplies  no  matter  what 
the  size  of  the  ship.  In  the  United 
79 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

States  Field  Service  Regulations  for 
1914  (page  208)  three  gross  tons  is 
given  as  the  minimum  allowed  for  the 
transportation  of  a  soldier,  and  ten 
gross  tons  as  the  minimum  for  a  horse ; 
under  ordinary  peace  conditions  larger 
space  is  permitted. 

Lloyd's  Register,  1914-15,  shows 
that  there  is  not  a  single  ship  of  over 
2000  tons  in  the  entire  German  mer- 
chant marine  which  does  not  possess 
speed  enough  to  cross  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  in  twelve  days. 

By  combining  these  figures  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  statement  that  Germany 
could  land  half  a  million  men  upon  our 
eastern  coast  in  two  weeks'  time  is  far 
from  a  ridiculous  one.  Before  the 
present  war  there  were  many  theories 
as  to  how  long  it  would  take  Germany 
to  mobilize  after  she  had  declared  war 
80 


ARMY  REFORM 

on  France.  In  point  of  fact,  inside 
the  German  border  and  ranged  parallel 
with  the  boundary  of  Belgium,  a  large 
German  army  was  marking  time  before 
any  declaration  of  war,  and  at  that  mo- 
ment needed  only  to  be  given  the  word 
to  step  across  the  border.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
Germany  might  embark  her  men  before 
she  chose  to  declare  war  against  Amer- 
ica. 

It  is  naturally  to  be  supposed  that 
we  would  not  be  attacked  by  a  small 
nation,  and  that  if  invaded  by  a  power- 
ful nation  she  would  certainly  organize 
and  send  against  us  the  largest  force 
possible.  We  must  remember  that  in- 
ternational alliances  have  become  the 
order  of  the  day;  that  wars  are  now  al- 
most invariably  fought  by  coalitions  of 
nations.  Thus  France  and  Great  Brit- 
81 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

am,  although  hereditary  enemies,  com- 
bined in  the  Crimea  to  support  Turkey 
against  Russia.  To-day  Russia,  Great 
Britain,  and  France  have  temporarily 
united  against  their  common  rival,  Ger- 
many. Bulgaria,  Greece,  and  Serbia, 
who  have  long  felt  toward  one  another 
a  ferocious  hatred,  temporarily  com- 
bined in  the  last  Balkan  war  to  attack 
Turkey,  their  common  foe. 

It  is  therefore  highly  probable  that 
we  may  some  day  have  to  fight  against 
a  combination  of  two  or  more  nations. 
If,  after  the  present  hostilities  have 
ceased,  Japan  and  Germany  should 
both  be  antagonistic  toward  us,  nothing 
could  be  more  according  to  precedent 
than  that  they  should  temporarily  com- 
promise their  present  difficulties  in  or- 
der to  deal  us  more  successful  blows. 
This  is,  however,  only  a  possibility,  and 
82 


ARMY  REFORM 

since  I  am  pleading  for  the  minimum 
of  preparedness  rather  than  for  the 
maximum,  I  will  assume  for  purposes 
of  discussion  that  we  shall  be  in  conflict 
with  only  one  nation  at  a  time. 

An  enemy,  having  fifty-five  hundred 
miles  of  coast  from  which  to  choose  a 
point  of  attack,  would  naturally  not  at- 
tempt to  land  near  any  one  of  our  forti- 
fied ports,  which  reminds  us  that  coast 
defenses  are  useless  without  an  ade- 
quate mobile  field  army  to  prevent 
landings  in  the  wide  gaps  between 
them.  Even  the  Dardanelles  would 
have  fallen  in  short  order  had  the  splen- 
did forts  not  been  amply  supported  by 
the  Germanized  Turkish  field  army. 

It  is  therefore  self-evident  that  an 

enemy  landing  five  hundred  thousand 

trained  and  organized  troops  on  our 

coast  in  two  weeks  would  need  to  be  op- 

83 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

posed  by  an  equal  force  that  could  be 
mobilized  in  the  same  length  of  time. 
We  must  be  ready  to  match  numbers 
for  numbers,  quality  for  quality,  and 
speed  for  speed,  up  to  the  ultimate  limit 
of  the  enemy's  strength  at  the  point  of 
attack.  Effectively  to  defend  the  At- 
lantic coast,  we  should  therefore  be 
obliged  within  two  weeks'  time  to  mo- 
bilize 500,000  men  and  transport  them 
to  the  scene  of  action.  In  two  months 
we  should  need  to  put  into  the  field 
against  the  enemy's  principal  attack 
1,500,000  troops.  At  least  one  million 
additional  men  would  be  necessary  to 
guard  against  feints  and  raids,  to  pro- 
tect our  lines  of  communication  and  our 
arsenals  from  attack  by  spies  and 
agents  of  the  enemy  and  to  perform 
transport  and  base-line  duties.  Euro- 
pean armies  are  to-day  employing  at 
84 


ARMY  REFORM 

least  as  many  men  behind  the  battle  line 
and  along  the  lines  of  communication  as 
they  have  in  the  actual  front. 

Thus  we  arrive  at  a  minimum  total 
of  2,500,000  men  necessary  to  defend  us 
against  the  attack  of  a  single  great  na- 
tion. Such  an  army  would  even  then 
rank  only  eighth  in  size  among  the 
armies  of  the  world. 


85 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    SWISS   SYSTEM 

IT  is  manifestly  undesirable  that  we 
should  ever  attempt  to  maintain  a 
standing  army  of  2,500,000  men.  The 
objections  which  Americans  have  to 
great  standing  armies  like  those  of  Ger- 
many and  Russia  are  well  founded. 
How,  then,  can  we  ever  be  prepared  to 
mobilize  the  needed  number  of  trained 
and  disciplined  troops  in  so  short  a 
time?  In  answer  to  this  question  our 
military  experts  unanimously  advocate 
the  adoption  of  a  system  of  universal 
compulsory  military  service  based  upon 
and  largely  copied  from  the  Swiss  sys- 
tem and  its  counterpart  in  Australia. 
86 


THE  SWISS  SYSTEM 

These  offer  us  for  adoption  not  an 
experiment  but  a  thoroughly  tested 
and  eminently  successful  method  of  na- 
tional defense. 

The  underlying  ideas  of  the  German 
standing  army  and  of  the  Swiss  mili- 
tary system  are  diametrically  opposed. 

Militarism  in  the  extreme  type  is 
overbearing,  aggressive,  and  brutal. 
The  patriotism  it  fosters  is  two-faced, 
for  it  inculcates  hatred  of  neighboring 
nations  quite  as  much  as  love  of  one's 
own  country.  In  extreme  cases  it  de- 
velops a  patriotism  gone  mad,  while  it 
makes  aggression  easy  and  even  inevi- 
table. 

By  contrast,  the  Swiss  and  Aus- 
tralian systems  make  no  preparation 
for  aggressive  warfare  and  therefore  do 
not  hold  up  before  the  minds  of  the 
young  any  ambition  for  conflict  beyond 
87 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

their  own  borders  or  for  the  conquest 
of  their  neighbors.  Adequate  prepara- 
tion for  self-defense  curtails  aggres- 
sion, and  brings  nearer  and  nearer  the 
possibility  of  combined  international 
action  to  curb  truculent  nations  and  to 
civilize  barbaric  races. 

In  the  Australian  system,  military 
science  taught  by  competent  official  in- 
structors, form  a  compulsory  part  of 
the  education  of  every  boy  between  the 
ages  of  twelve  and  eighteen;  during 
those  years  he  undergoes  military  in- 
struction coincidently  with  his  other 
studies,  so  that  he  reaches  the  age  of 
nineteen  a  trained  soldier.  His  mili- 
tary education  is  imparted  to  him  at 
the  most  acquisitive  age,  and  does  not 
interfere  with  his  later  productive, 
industrial  occupations.  When  he 
reaches  the  age  of  nineteen  he  is  en- 
88 


THE  SWISS  SYSTEM 

rolled  as  a  soldier  in  the  battalion  of 
the  region  in  which  he  lives.  From 
that  time  he  is  in  active  service  for  two 
weeks  of  every  year,  for  practice  which 
is  intended  to  keep  fresh  in  mind  his 
military  knowledge.  He  remains  a 
member  of  the  battalion  for  eight 
years,  until  he  reaches  the  age  of  twen- 
ty-seven, and  throughout  that  period  he 
is  at  all  times  liable  for  service  in  de- 
fense of  his  country.  After  reaching 
the  age  of  nineteen  he  thereafter  under- 
goes only  about  one  hundred  and  twelve 
days'  training.  He  cannot,  however, 
be  sent  out  of  Australia  unless  he 
expressly  volunteers  for  foreign  serv- 
ice. The  Australian  army  unit  is  a 
battalion  of  one  thousand  men.  The 
country  is  therefore  divided  into  units 
of  population  each  of  which  contains 
approximately  one  thousand  young  men 
89 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

between  the  ages  of  nineteen  and  twen- 
ty-seven. 

In  Switzerland  the  young  men,  after 
having  had  preliminary  training  in 
school,  join  their  regiments  in  their 
twentieth  year,  and  during  the  summer 
of  that  year  undergo  two  months  of 
continuous,  intensive  military  instruc- 
tion. For  twelve  years  thereafter  they 
are  at  all  times  liable  for  immediate 
service  in  defense  of  their  country. 
During  each  of  these  years  they 
perform  two  weeks'  training  in  the 
field.  After  the  age  of  twenty,  only 
about  thirty  weeks  of  military  serv- 
ice are  required,  except  in  case  of 
war. 

The  system  recommended  by  Ameri- 
can experts  for  adoption  by  this  coun- 
try would  begin  with  the  training  of  all 
boys  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and 
90 


THE  SWISS  SYSTEM 

eighteen  in  gymnastics,  hygiene,  the 
manual  of  arms,  rifle  practice,  and  pla- 
toon and  company  formations.  In  the 
summer  of  his  nineteenth  year  every 
boy  would  be  assigned  to  his  regiment 
and  begin  active  service  with  two 
months  of  intensive  training  in  bat- 
talion, regimental,  and  brigade  manoeu- 
vers,  and  afterward,  he  would  be  en- 
rolled for  service  for  four  years,  or  until 
he  is  twenty-three — his  service  in  time 
of  peace  being  limited  to  two  weeks 
spent  in  camp  each  summer.  At  twen- 
ty-three years  of  age  the  young  man 
would  be  mustered  out  of  his  regiment 
and  placed  in  the  reserve,  from  which 
he  could  be  called  to  active  service  only 
in  case  of  dire  need.  This  system 
would  eventually  furnish  the  United 
States  with  an  active  army  of  2,500,000 
men  under  twenty-four  years  of  age, 
91 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

and  with  a  reserve  of  nearly  8,000,000 
trained  soldiers  between  the  ages  of 
twenty-four  and  forty-five  who  could 
be  called  upon  in  case  of  a  long  war. 
Thus  after  his  eighteenth  year  a  total 
of  only  fourteen  weeks'  military  train- 
ing would  be  required  of  each  normal 
male  citizen. 

No  member  of  the  citizen  forces 
would  be  required  either  to  serve  out- 
side the  territory  of  the  United  States 
or  to  aid  in  suppressing  local  civil  dis- 
orders such  as  strikes. 

Each  year  in  the  United  States  a  mil- 
lion men  reach  the  age  of  twenty  of 
whom  about  65  per  cent,  are  fit  for 
military  service. 

Military  training  and  service  would, 

under  peace  conditions,  be  completely 

finished  by  all  men  before  they  reached 

their  twenty-fourth  birthday,  thus  in- 

92 


THE  SWISS  SYSTEM 

terfering  as  little  as  possible  with  their 
productive  life.  In  the  event  that  war 
were  thrust  upon  us,  the  casualties 
would  be  borne  by  a  class  of  men  who, 
for  the  most  part,  had  not  yet  acquired 
families  or  reached  positions  of  great 
responsibility. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
adoption  of  a  system  of  preparedness 
in  no  way  increases  the  liability  of  the 
individual  to  serve  as  a  soldier  in  the 
event  of  war.  If  we  should  have  a  big 
war  in  the  near  future,  the  draft  would, 
of  necessity,  be  instituted  and  enforced 
and  our  citizens  would  all  have  to  fight, 
whether  they  liked  it  or  not.  Pre- 
paredness renders  such  an  eventuality 
less  likely,  and  makes  it  improbable 
that  if  we  do  fight,  our  dead  would  have 
to  die  in  vain. 

To  adopt  the  Swiss  system  it  will  not 
93 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

be  necessary  for  the  United  States  to 
institute  new  units  of  population,  since 
she  already  possesses  such  units  in 
her  national  congressional  districts. 
Every  district  could  be  called  upon  to 
furnish  a  mixed  brigade  composed  of 
two  regiments  of  infantry,  two  bat- 
teries of  field  artillery,  a  squadron  of 
cavalry,  a  transport  train,  a  signal- 
corps  detachment,  a  company  of  engi- 
neers, and  a  field  hospital.  Certain 
western  districts  would  be  called  upon 
to  support  brigades  composed  of  cav- 
alry regiments  and  a  battalion  of  horse 
artillery. 

The  brigades  thus  formed  would  be 
organized  into  divisions,  corps,  and 
armies  under  the  supervision  of  the  gen- 
eral staff  at  Washington,  presided  over 
by  a  military  secretary  of  war.  The 
standing  army  would  be  limited  to 
94 


THE  SWISS  SYSTEM 

staff  officers,  instructors,  and  engineers ; 
to  a  certain  amount  of  infantry,  cav- 
alry, and  field-artillery  for  foreign  gar- 
rison duty,  in  Alaska,  the  Philippines, 
Hawaii,  and  the  Panama  Canal  Zone, 
and  for  manning  in  part  our  coast  de- 
fenses; to  such  a  number  of  officers  as 
would  be  sufficient  to  supervise  the  mili- 
tary training  of  our  boys  and  to  main- 
tain an  adequate  reserve  supply  of  mu- 
nitions; it  would  include  certain  highly 
trained  crack  regiments,  especially  of 
mountain,  siege,  and  field  artillery,  by 
which  the  experimental  work  necessary 
to  determine  the  proper  standard  of 
military  efficiency  would  be  carried  on. 
West  Point,  the  army  service  schools, 
the  garrison  regiments,  and  the  crack 
military  regiments  would  all  be  used  as 
means  of  training  professional  officers 
for  staff  appointments  and  for  high 
95 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

commands  in  the  national  field  forces. 
All  the  company  officers  and  a  certain 
number  of  the  field  officers  of  the  line 
regiments  would  be  civilians  who  had 
voluntarily  undergone  special  training 
and  won  promotion  by  marked  ability. 


96 


CHAPTER  VII 

EDUCATIONAL   IMPORTANCE  OF 
MILITARY   TRAINING 

IN  addition  to  its  protective  value, 
such  a  military  system  yields  edu- 
cational and  economic  benefits  which  at 
least  equal  its  defensive  importance. 
The  result  most  generally  obtained,  and 
the  one  which  would  be  of  greatest  im- 
portance to  the  United  States,  is  the 
fostering  of  a  sense  of  mutual  responsi- 
bility between  the  State  and  the  in- 
dividual. Even  if  there  were  no  need 
of  national  defense  and  no  rumors 
of  wars,  the  Swiss  system  would  more 
than  repay  its  cost  to  Switzerland  in 
the  increased  physical  vigor  and  im- 
97 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

proved  mentality  of  its  citizens.  It  in- 
culcates promptness,  obedience,  exact- 
ness, self-control,  and  truthfulness.  It 
teaches  discipline,  and  hygiene.  It 
tends  to  mold  the  heterogeneous  ele- 
ments of  the  nation  into  homogeneity, 
a  result  sorely  needed  by  the  conglom- 
eration of  assorted  nationalities  assem- 
bled, but  not  yet  blended  together, 
under  the  American  flag.  Her  mili- 
tary system  has  made  of  modern  Swit- 
zerland a  fearless  and  united  country, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  her  popu- 
lation is  made  up  of  French,  Germans, 
and  Italians,  speaking  three  languages 
and  acknowledging  two  religions. 

If  such  a  system  were  adopted  by  the 
United  States  every  growing  boy 
would  be  constantly  under  inspection 
by  trained  surgeons  and  military  ex- 
perts. His  physical  weaknesses  and 
98 


MILITARY  TRAINING 

mental  defects  would  be  considered  and, 
as  far  as  possible,  remedied.  It  is  now 
well  recognized  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  ineffective,  criminal,  or  insane 
members  of  society  suffer  from  physical 
defects  that  could  so  far  be  modified 
during  childhood  as  to  make  useful  citi- 
zens out  of  potentially  dangerous  per- 
sons. Many  defects  which  cannot  be 
detected  by  superficial  inspection  be- 
come very  evident  during  military  train- 
ing, which  not  only  provided  the  in- 
structors with  an  opportunity  to  study 
deficiencies,  but  furnishes  also  the 
means  and  time  for  applying  the  rem- 
edies. 

Military  training,  outdoor  life,  and 
expert  supervision  by  men  who  under- 
stand crude  boyish  impulses  would  do 
much  toward  converting  lawless  energy 
into  disciplined  power.  The  women 
99 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

of  Australia  at  first  so  strongly  opposed 
the  plan  for  compulsory  military  train- 
ing that  they  retarded  and  nearly  de- 
feated its  adoption;  within  two  years' 
time,  however,  the  wonders  which  it 
had  wrought  in  their  own  boys  con- 
verted them  into  its  most  ardent  advo- 
cates. 

One  of  the  strongest  arraignments  of 
our  American  civilization  is  the  great 
number  of  inefficient,  unmoral,  or  crim- 
inal persons  in  whom  the  State  takes  no 
interest  unless  they  have  been  officially 
labeled  paupers,  idiots,  or  criminals. 
We  make  no  intelligent  effort  to  di- 
minish by  protective  measures  such 
wastefulness  of  a  nation's  best  asset — 
its  citizens.  Another  serious  defect  in 
our  national  life  in  America  is  the  lack 
of  loyalty  for  or  sense  of  duty  toward 
the  Government.  Europeans  emphat- 
100 


MILITARY  TRAINING 

ically  declare  us  the  most  unpatriotic 
nation  in  the  world. 

These  defects  would  be  remedied,  or 
at  least  greatly  mitigated  by  military 
training  which  rapidly  develops  civic 
consciousness.  It  teaches  the  young  to 
revere  their  flag.  Their  patriotism 
kindled  at  the  most  susceptible  age, 
abides  with  them  all  their  lives  there- 
after. It  becomes  no  longer  a  phrase, 
a  song,  a  momentary  emotion,  but  the 
mainspring  of  their  civic  life.  It 
grows  with  their  growth,  they  breathe 
it  in  with  every  inspiration.  As  their 
country  makes  herself  responsible  for 
their  well-being,  they,  in  return,  feel 
responsibility  for  her  safety  and  pros- 
perity, and  realize  that  it  is  the  right 
and  duty  of  every  citizen  to  defend  his 
country.  They  learn  that  if  the  need 
arises,  they  must  even  make  the  su- 
101 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

preme  sacrifice  of  dying  for  that  coun- 
try. It  is  a  wholesome  thought,  which 
teaches  them  to  make  cheerfully  the 
thousand  smaller  sacrifices  of  good 
citizenship. 

If  any  one  of  us  questions  whether 
it  is  worth  while  to  make  the  supreme 
sacrifice  of  dying  for  the  ideals  and  the 
safety  of  his  native  land,  the  best  au- 
thority to  accept  in  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion is  the  man  who  is  actually  making 
that  sacrifice;  as,  for  instance,  a  mor- 
tally wounded  soldier.  It  sometimes 
happens  that  fatally  wounded  men  lie 
without  pain  and  with  clear  minds  for 
several  hours  before  they  die.  They 
realize  their  approaching  fate  with  a 
certainty  which  comes  only  to  men  who 
feel  that  the  very  foundation  of  life  has 
crumbled.  They  live  a  very  long  time 
in  those  last  few  hours.  They  review 
102 


MILITARY  TRAINING 

minutely  their  whole  lives,  weighing  and 
considering.  They  are  detached  and 
unprejudiced,  as  only  those  can  be  who 
have  absolutely  nothing  more  either  to. 
gain  or  to  lose.  They  can  then  most 
justly  estimate  what  is  of  true  value  and 
what  is  not. 

In  France  I  have  talked  with  many 
such  men,  have  taken  down  their  last 
messages ;  have,  in  answer  to  their  crav- 
ing for  human  companionship,  sat  by 
them  until  they  died.  Most  of  them 
were  not  philosophers,  they  were  not 
even  officers,  but  only  simple  soldiers 
who  before  the  war  had  been  perhaps 
clerks  or  farmers;  and  yet  each  and 
every  one  of  them  was  filled  with  a  sub- 
lime and  radiant  contentment  because 
he  was  dying  for  his  conception  of 
right,  for  his  patrief  for  his  ideals. 

Their  faces  wore  beatific  smiles,  and 
103 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

their  eyes  shone  with  a  light  of  great 
happiness.  Never  again  can  one  who 
has  seen  such  heroic  deaths  ask  himself 
that  coward  question,  "Is  it  worth  while 
to  make  the  supreme  sacrifice  in  defense 
of  one's  ideals?" 


104 


REAR-ADMIRAL  BRADLEY  A.  FISKE 
who  recently  resigned  as  Aide  for  Naval  Operations. 

He  graduated  from  Annapolis,  standing  second  in  his  class.  In  1877 
he  invented  an  apparatus  for  lowering  life-boats  in  a  sea-way.  In  1889 
he  invented  the  famous  Fiske  tejescope  sight.  In  1896  he  invented 
an  electric  signal  by  means  of  which  the  alarm  is  given  in  water-tight 
compartments  below  decks.  In  1904  he  invented  the  turret  range 
finder,  an  optical  instrument  by  means  of  which  an  observer  may 
measure  his  distance  from  the  enemy  while  protected  within  a  turret. 


JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 
Grand  Admiral  of  the  American  Navy 

Editor  of  the  Raleigh  (North  Carolina)  "News  and  Observer." 
He  has  been  for  many  years  an  active  Democratic  politician.  He 
ably  assisted  Bryan  in  nominating  Wilson  for  the  presidency. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

TEMPORARY  EXPEDIENTS 

TO-DAY  at  least  seven  nations  pos- 
sess armies  of  far  more  than  two 
and  one-half  million  men.  An  army  of 
that  size  is,  therefore,  for  us  the  irre- 
ducible minimum.  No  steps  which  fall 
short  of  this  mark  will  be  of  use  except 
as  they  lead  logically  toward  it  as  an 
ultimate  result. 

The  system  of  universal  military  serv- 
ice recommended  by  our  staff  officers 
and  based  upon  the  successful  Swiss  and 
Australian  systems  cannot  suddenly  be 
put  into  full  operation;  legal  and  polit- 
ical obstacles  must  first  be  overcome, 
and  even  when  this  has  been  accom- 
105 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

plished  the  system  will  give  us  an  ef- 
fective army  only  after  it  has  been  for 
several  years  in  process  of  development. 
It  is  imperative  that  for  the  interim  we 
make  some  immediate  provision  for  na- 
tional safety;  since  an  international  cri- 
sis may  confront  us  at  any  time. 

The  one  effective  means  of  thus 
quickly  protecting  ourselves  is  to  adopt 
and  promptly  put  into  operation  such 
an  extensive  program  of  naval  construc- 
tion, as  would  give  us  a  mighty  fleet  in 
the  shortest  possible  time.  This  would 
involve  a  procedure  totally  different 
from  that  advocated  by  the  present  ad- 
ministration, which  will  not  result  in 
any  increase  in  the  relative  effectiveness 
of  our  navy.  We  have  at  present  in 
service  only  twelve  dreadnoughts  and 
no  battle  cruisers  and  are  greatly  ham- 
pered by  lack  of  proper  auxiliaries. 
106 


TEMPORARY  EXPEDIENTS 

Of  battle  cruisers  and  dreadnoughts 
Japan  possesses  twelve,  Germany 
twenty-six  and  Great  Britain  forty- 
three. 

Our  immediate  needs  involve  the 
laying  down  of  at  least  eight  super- 
dreadnoughts,  together  with  a  propor- 
tionate number  of  battle  cruisers, 
cruisers,  destroyers  and  auxiliaries,  and 
their  completion  in  record  time.  Such 
a  program  is  of  course  too  extravagant 
to  be  made  a  permanent  custom.  It  is 
urged  as  an  emergency  measure  and  as 
the  only  effective  temporary  expedient 
that  will  tide  us  over  until  we  have  at- 
tained the  Swiss  system  in  full  opera- 
tion. If  properly  carried  out  it  would 
in  two  or  three  years  double  the  battle 
efficiency  of  our  navy. 

The  necessity  for  such  a  program 
quickly  becomes  apparent  when  we  con- 
107 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

sider  the  condition  of  our  army  as  it 
now  is.  At  the  present  moment  *  the 
only  adequately  trained  and  organized 
mobile  troops  stationed  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi are  two  regiments  of  regular 
cavalry  and  two  regiments  of  regular 
infantry,  a  total  of  about  four  thousand 
men.  These  constitute  the  sole  mobile 
forces  now  in  that  wide  area  having  suf- 
ficient tactical  cohesion  and  enough  ex- 
perience in  the  art  of  war  to  withstand 
the  shock  of  battle. 

It  would  be  utterly  impossible  to 
place  our  state  militia  organizations  in 
any  sort  of  fighting  trim  in  less  than  six 
months.  Good  marksmanship  and  un- 
coordinated bravery  are  in  the  conflicts 
of  to-day  very  much  at  a  discount  be- 
fore efficiency  and  organization. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  war 

*  December,  1915. 

108 


TEMPORARY  EXPEDIENTS 

Great  Britain's  territorial  battalions 
were  probably  better  trained  than  the 
best  of  our  militia  regiments,  and  yet 
despite  the  desperate  need  of  reinforce- 
ments at  the  front,  no  British  terri- 
torial organization  could  be  brought  to 
a  state  of  efficiency  that  permitted  its 
use  in  battle  in  less  than  eight  months. 

It  is  an  axiom  in  both  the  German 
and  French  armies  that  troops  which 
have  had  less  than  a  year's  preparation 
are  literally  worse  than  useless,  their  ad- 
dition to  a  weak  army  only  tending  to 
make  it  still  weaker. 

From  the  days  when  Alexander's 
crack  little  army  smashed  the  unnum- 
bered, but  untrained,  Persian  hosts, 
down  to  the  immediate  present,  when 
the  Germans,  with  comparatively  small 
losses,  have  in  a  little  over  a  year  in- 
flicted six  million  casualties  upon  Rus- 
109 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

sia's  unwieldy  and  disorganized  hordes, 
reliance  upon  mere  numbers  has  ever 
been  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 

It  has  been  said  that  when  two  forces 
meet  in  combat  the  actual  battle  merely 
secures  a  decision  as  to  the  relative 
values  of  two  completed  machines,  and 
their  degrees  of  preparedness  for  use. 

The  lay  mind  grasps  the  significance 
of  these  facts  slowly  and  with  difficulty. 
It  does  not  immediately  perceive  that 
since  we  have  5500  miles  of  coast  line, 
we  must  have  troops  to  protect  the  wide 
gaps  between  our  isolated  coast  de- 
fenses. Our  field  army  is,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  so  insignificant  that  it  could  not 
protect  even  the  flank  and  rear  of  our 
permanent  forts.  We  have  therefore 
no  single  fixed  gun  which  is  safe  from  a 
raiding  party  which  might  be  landed 
from  a  hostile  fleet. 
110 


TEMPORARY  EXPEDIENTS 

Two  seasoned  army  corps  of  40,000 
men,  once  gaining  foothold  on  our  shore, 
could  work  their  will  with  us  for  at 
least  six  months.  There  are  several 
great  nations  any  one  of  which  could 
within  a  month  land  a  dozen  such  corps 
upon  our  coast.  We  must  therefore, 
until  we  have  adopted  the  Swiss  system, 
make  such  a  disaster  as  improbable  as 
possible;  this  can  be  accomplished  only 
by  an  immediate  and  systematic  ex- 
travagance in  naval  construction. 


Ill 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ESSENTIAL   BASIS   OF  ARMY  AND 
NAVY   REFORMS 

LET  us  next  consider  the  various 
steps  which  would  lead  upward 
toward  the  adoption  of  the  Swiss  sys- 
tem, and  the  attainment  of  our  irre- 
ducible minimum  of  military  prepared- 
ness. 

We  find  at  the  very  start  that  our 
present  military  system  is  fundamen- 
tally wrong,  and  that  we  must  have  not 
only  an  increase  in  quantity  but  a  radi- 
cal change  in  kind. 

To  begin  with,  the  only  firm  founda- 
tion of  efficiency  in  defense  and  the  nec- 
essary first  step  toward  any  subsequent 


ARMY  AND  NAVY  REFORMS 

progress  is  the  appointment  as  secre- 
tary of  the  navy  and  secretary  of  war 
of  trained  professional  men  selected  for 
special  fitness  and  proved  ability. 
These  most  important  offices  are  now 
conferred  as  political  rewards  usually 
for  having  assisted  in  electing  a  Presi- 
dent. A  lawyer  is  invariably  chosen  as 
attorney  general  and  a  man  with  bank- 
ing experience  is  always  selected  to  fill 
the  post  of  secretary  of  treasury,  but 
any  faithful  political  henchman  has  thus 
far  been  considered  good  enough  to  be 
secretary  of  the  navy  or  army. 

No  civilian,  be  he  editor,  college  presi- 
dent, politician,  author,  or  legislator,  is 
qualified  to  formulate  plans  for  our  na- 
tional defense  or  to  hold  any  high  mili- 
tary office.  The  profession  of  arms  is 
to-day  one  of  the  most  intricate  and 
technical  in  existence.  Moreover,  its 
113 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

errors  are  far  more  costly  than  those  of 
any  other  profession.  A  surgeon  who 
performs  unskilfully  and  unsuccessfully 
a  major  operation  has  only  one  vic- 
tim, while  a  brigade  commander  who 
through  lack  of  training  makes  a  serious 
mistake  sacrifices  the  lives  of  thousands 
of  men  and  places  his  commanding  gen- 
eral at  a  tactical  disadvantage  that  is 
likely  to  prove  even  more  costly.  The 
incompetent  politician  who  without  any 
training  attempts  to  plan  out  the  de- 
tails of  a  mobilization  or  to  pass  upon 
the  efficiency  of  a  naval  unit  jeopardizes 
the  lives  and  prosperity  of  millions  of 
people.  Politicians  are  just  as  incom- 
petent in  military  science  as  they  would 
be  without  technical  education  in  one  of 
the  learned  professions.  Only  the  high 
profession  of  politics  seems  to  require 
neither  training  nor  experience. 
114 


ARMY  AND  NAVY  REFORMS 

It  is  often  said  that  American  officers 
are  not  altogether  unselfish  in  their  de- 
sire to  see  civilians  removed  from  our 
ministries  of  defense.  Even  if  this  is 
true,  can  they  be  blamed?  Would  not 
a  member  of  any  other  high  profession 
be  indignant  if  through  political  influ- 
ence a  man  untrained  in  that  profession 
were  suddenly  to  be  made  autocratic 
chief  over  him  and  all  his  fellows? 
Therefore  I  must  maintain  that  no  mat- 
ter what  system  of  defense  we  institute 
or  how  large  a  bond  issue  we  declare, 
we  can  never  have  safe  and  sound  reor- 
ganization and  enlargement  of  our  army 
and  navy  until  we  have  military  and  not 
civilian  secretaries  of  war  and  marine 
as  members  of  the  President's  cabinet. 

No  matter  how  great  his  ability  or 
how  wide  his  experience  in  political 
fields,  no  statesman  lacking  special 
115 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

training  in  the  profession  of  arms  is 
fitted  to  act  as  director  of  the  army  or 
navy. 

Without  question  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  the  greatest  statesman  and  the  no- 
blest patriot  that  our  country  has  yet 
produced.  No  one  ever  questions  his 
supremacy  as  a  leader  or  his  preemi- 
nence as  a  man  of  wide  and  intensely 
practical  knowledge  of  human  affairs. 
Would  that  we  possessed  any  one  half 
as  able  as  the  victor  of  1860  to  lead  us  in 
the  campaign  of  1916!  If  any  un- 
trained civilian  could  ever  by  any  pos- 
sibility have  successfully  directed  mili- 
tary affairs,  President  Lincoln,  cooper- 
ating with  Mr.  Stanton,  the  least  in- 
competent of  our  long  line  of  secre- 
taries of  war,  would  certainly  have  been 
successful 

What  were  the  facts? 
116 


ARMY  AND  NAVY  REFORMS 

Col.  G.  R.  F.  Henderson,  one  of  the 
foremost  authorities  on  our  Civil  War, 
writes  that,  "In  assuming  control  of 
the  Union  armies,  Lincoln  and  Stanton 
made  the  Confederates  a  present  of  at 
least  50,000  men." 

Field  Marshal  Viscount  Wolseley 
says:  "To  hand  over  to  civilians  the 
administration  and  organization  of  an 
army,  whether  in  peace  or  war,  or  to  al- 
low them  to  interfere  in  the  selection  of 
officers  for  command  or  promotion,  is 
most  injurious  to  efficiency;  while  dur- 
ing the  war,  to  allow  them,  no  matter 
how  high  their  political  capacity,  to  dic- 
tate to  commanders  in  the  field  any  line 
of  conduct,  after  the  army  has  once  re- 
ceived its  commission,  is  simply  to  insure 
disaster."  ".  .  .  In  the  first  three 
years  of  the  War  of  Secession,  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton  practi- 
117 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

cally  controlled  the  movements  of  the 
Federal  forces,  the  Confederates  were 
generally  successful  .  .  .  the  North- 
ern prospects  did  not  begin  to  brighten 
until  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  that  unselfish 
intelligence  which  distinguished  him, 
abdicated  his  military  functions  in 
favor  of  General  Grant." 

In  Grant's  memoirs  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing illuminating  passage:  "In  my 
first  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  alone 
he  stated  to  me  that  he  never  professed 
to  be  a  military  man  nor  to  know  how 
campaigns  should  be  conducted  .  .  . 
but  that  pressure  forced  him  into  issuing 
his  series  of  military  orders.  He  did 
not  know  but  they  were  all  wrong  and 
did  know  that  some  of  them  were. 

"He  submitted  a  plan  of  campaign 
of  his  own,  which  he  wanted  me  to  hear 
and  then  do  as  I  pleased  about  it;  he 
118 


ARMY  AND  NAVY  REFORMS 

pointed  out  two  streams  which  emptied 
into  the  Potomac,  and  suggested  that 
the  army  might  be  moved  in  boats  and 
be  landed  between  the  mouths  of  these 
streams.  We  would  then  have  the  Po- 
tomac to  bring  our  supplies  and  the 
tributaries  would  protect  our  flanks 
while  we  moved  out.  I  listened  respect- 
fully but  did  not  suggest  that  the  same 
streams  would  protect  Lee's  flanks, 
while  he  shut  us  up.  I  did  not  com- 
municate my  plans  to  the  President  nor 
did  I  to  the  Secretary  of  War."  *  To 
one  who  is  familiar  with  the  extremely 
moderate  tone  in  which  Grant's  memoirs 
are  written,  such  a  statement  is  doubly 
convincing. 

If  Abraham  Lincoln,  great  genius 
that  he  was,  proved  himself  incompetent 
to  direct  armies  in  warfare,  what  would 

*  Written  of  an  epoch  after  Lincoln  had  abdicated 
his   military   powers. 

119 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

happen  to  us  in  case  of  a  conflict  if  our 
defenses  had  to  be  organized  by  the 
petty  politicians  of  to-day? 

It  has  been  said,  "The  fool  never 
learns  at  all,  the  average  man  learns 
from  experience,  the  wise  man  learns 
from  the  experience  of  others."  Let  us 
in  the  present  case  try  to  learn  from  the 
experience  of  others. 

Germany,  in  preparing  for  the  pres- 
ent World  War,  selected  as  executive 
heads  of  her  army  those  of  her  general 
staff-officers  who  were  thought  to  be 
most  capable.  Results  have  certainly 
vindicated  her  judgment. 

The  very  first  step  deemed  necessary 
by  Great  Britain  after  declaring  war  on 
Germany  was  to  make  Lord  Kitchener 
her  minister  of  war. 

In  France,  General  Joffre,  before  he 
could  begin  the  Battle  of  the  Marne, 
120 


DR.  LYMAN  ABBOTT 
Preparationist 


ARMY  AND  NAVY  REFORMS 

had  to  threaten  to  resign  his  command 
in  order  to  force  the  removal  of  an  in- 
terfering and  incompetent  minister  of 
war.  After  fifteen  months  of  unsuc- 
.  cessful  campaigning,  she  had  been  re- 
luctantly compelled  to  admit  that  her 
difficulties  had  been  largely  due  to 
civilian  interference,  and  in  conse- 
quence, after  deposing  the  civilian  in- 
cumbents, she  has  appointed  General 
Gallieni  minister  of  war  and  Rear- 
Admiral  Lacaze  minister  of  marine. 

Germany  and  Italy,  the  two  coun- 
tries that  have  most  consistently  left  war 
preparations  to  soldiers,  are  also  the 
countries  that  have  had  to  undergo  few- 
est defeats  and  submit  to  the  smallest 
measure  of  invasion. 

Let  us  learn  by  the  experience  of 
others,  and  remove  the  chieftainships  of 
our  army  and  navy  from  the  category 
121 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

of  political  plums.  Not  only  is  such  a 
step  the  first  toward  better  things,  but 
it  is  one  which  can  be  made  at  once. 
No  antiquated  legislation  needs  to  be 
removed,  no  new  statutes  must  be 
passed.  Nothing  intervenes  but  the 
will  of  a  single  man. 


CHAPTER  X 

ESSENTIAL  SUPPLEMENTARY   REFORMS 

HERE      are     numerous     minor 


T 


changes  which  can  be  made  al- 
most as  quickly  and  which  tend  logically 
toward  the  attainment  of  adequate 
preparedness. 

Not  the  least  of  these  would  be  to 
transfer  the  command  of  our  state  regi- 
ments from  the  hands  of  the  governors 
to  the  Federal  Government.  This 
would  result  in  the  nationalization  of 
the  militia,  and  would  be  a  distinct  step 
in  the  right  direction.  It  would  allow 
the  militia  of  the  various  States  to  serve 
their  country  directly,  without  the  serv- 
ices of  forty-eight  middlemen.  It 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

would  result  in  unification  and  stand- 
ardization and  in  a  more  efficient  body 
of  trained  civilian  officers.  To  make 
the  militia  a  national  army  would  be  a 
step  toward  making  it  a  national  army 
of  the  Swiss  and  Australian  type. 

To  secure  for  the  militia  the  best  ele- 
ment of  our  population — the  hard-work- 
ing, clear-thinking,  and  truly  patriotic 
citizens — two  changes  in  our  pres- 
ent methods  are  absolutely  necessary: 
first,  we  must  pay  adequate  wages  to 
our  militia  when  in  service,  and,  second, 
we  must  cease  to  demand  of  our  state 
regiments  that  they  render  strike  duty. 
This  last  is  the  chief  obstacle  to  enlist- 
ment, for  the  better  class  of  working- 
men  will  not  volunteer  for  a  service  that 
may  at  some  time  oblige  them  to  shoot 
down  their  fellow  workmen.  An  ideal 
citizen  is  the  man  who  is  a  good  soldier 


SUPPLEMENTARY  REFORMS 

in  time  of  war,  and  an  active  participant 
in  political  and  economic  problems  in 
time  of  peace.  But  if  he  fulfils  the  sec- 
ond of  these  two  requirements,  he  is  and 
should  be  partizan;  and  if  he  is  forced 
to  perform  the  duties  which  properly 
belong  to  a  state  police  force  like  the 
gendarmerie  of  France  or  the  Royal 
Northwestern  Mounted  Police  of  Can- 
ada, he  either  hesitates  to  suppress  his 
confederates  or  is  tempted  to  oppress 
his  antagonists.  A  good  citizen  may 
logically  be  a  soldier  or  a  policeman ;  he 
cannot  justly  be  both  at  once.  This  is 
so  generally  recognized  in  European 
armies  that  they  have  their  own  police 
forces,  which  as  a  rule  do  no  fighting. 

One  of  the  most  necessary  items  of 

Preparedness  for  the  United  States  is 

the  development  of  its  Sanitary  Corps. 

Wars  are  now  won  not  so  much  by  the 

125 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

numbers  of  the  enemy  who  are  killed, 
as  by  the  numbers  of  one's  own  men 
who  can  be  kept  fit  and  in  the  field  of 
action.  The  most  important  duty  of 
the  medical  corps  is  not  to  care  for  the 
sick  and  the  wounded  but  to  superin- 
tend the  general  hygienic  conditions  of 
the  army  in  service.  The  Japanese,  in 
their  war  with  Russia,  gave  the  most 
admirable  demonstration  of  efficiency 
in  caring  for  the  health  of  their  men, 
and  our  own  United  States  is  on  record 
as  having  shown  the  most  inexcusable, 
almost  criminal  neglect  of  its  soldiers 
during  the  Spanish-American  war. 
Both  stories  have  often  been  told  but, 
unfortunately  for  us,  they  will  be  retold 
as  long  as  sanitation  of  armies  is  dis- 
cussed, or  histories  of  wars  written. 

Disgraceful  as  our  own  record  was, 
it  is  not  wise  for  us  to  thrust  it  out  of 
126 


SUPPLEMENTARY  REFORMS 

mind  until  we  have  first  learned  the 
lessons  it  can  teach  us  of  the  evils  of  the 
volunteer  system  and  conversely  of  the 
need  of  Preparedness. 

In  wars  before  the  Japanese-Russian 
conflict  the  average  number  of  deaths 
by  disease  was  to  those  killed  in  battle 
in  proportion  as  four  to  one.  In  our 
own  little  affair  with  Spain,  it  rose  to 
fourteen  to  one.  The  Japanese  in 
their  war  with  China  had  lost  nearly  the 
general  average  of  four  dead  of  disease 
for  one  killed  in  battle.  Ten  years 
later  in  the  Russian  war,  however,  they 
by  adequate  development  of  their  medi- 
cal corps,  reversed  these  figures  and  in- 
stead of  having  sixteen  die  of  sickness 
to  four  who  died  of  wounds,  they  had 
only  one  who  died  of  disease  for  four  of 
wounds — or  a  decrease  of  1,600  per 
cent.  The  Japanese  army  in  the  field  is 
127 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

supposed  to  have  averaged  about  600,- 
000  men.  Of  these,  a  little  less  than  9 
per  cent,  or  about  53,000  were  killed 
in  battle  or  died  of  wounds  received  in 
battle  while  those  who  were  lost  by  dis- 
ease numbered  only  12,000.  If  the 
average  of  former  wars  had  been  main- 
tained 262,000  of  their  soldiers  would 
have  died  of  illness.  If  they  had  ap- 
proached the  average  of  our  record  of 
the  Spanish  war,  disease  would  have 
destroyed  their  entire  army.  In  a  war 
where  they  were  opposed  by  a  nation 
so  overwhelmingly  superior  in  numbers 
as  Russia  and  which  commanded  almost 
unlimited  resources,  the  low  rate  of 
deaths  by  disease  was  an  element  so  im- 
portant that  without  it  the  Japanese 
could  never  have  won  the  war.  No 
matter  how  great  their  courage,  or  how- 
ever perfect  the  purely  military  side  of 
128 


SUPPLEMENTARY  REFORMS 

their  preparations  for  the  conflict,  the 
loss  of  those  250,000  men,  who  were 
saved  to  the  army  by  sanitary  precau- 
tions, would  certainly  have  turned  the 
tide  against  them.  It  was  because  the 
Japanese  so  clearly  realized  this,  be- 
cause they  had  worked  out  the  startling 
fact  that  an  army  in  active  service  kills 
by  neglect  many  more  of  its  own  men 
than  it  destroys  of  the  enemy  that  it 
concentrated  so  much  of  its  effort  in 
preparation  on  the  medical  aspect. 

It  is  important  that  the  heads  of  the 
army  and  navy  should  have  the  privi- 
lege of  the  floor  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives and  in  the  Senate.  It  is 
ludicrous  that  only  roundabout  and  un- 
official means  of  communication  are 
available  for  information  and  confer- 
ence between  the  legislative  and  defen- 
sive branches  of  our  Government. 
129 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

The  enlargement  of  West  Point 
would  be  another  distinct  step  in  the 
right  direction,  for  that  institution  now 
furnishes  us  with  only  one-third  the  of- 
ficers who  are  needed  for  even  our  pres- 
ent diminutive  army.  It  would  help 
matters  if  the  entrance  tests  were  less 
severe  and  the  "trying  out"  during  the 
first  year  more  crucial,  thus  eliminating 
undesirables  by  real  rather  than  by  ar- 
tificial tests  for  military  aptitude.  It 
would  be  an  improvement  if  admission 
depended  upon  nation-wide  competi- 
tive examinations,  instead  of  being 
made  by  congressional  appointment. 

The  effectiveness  of  even  our  diminu- 
tive army  is  further  reduced  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  scattered  about  across  the  con- 
tinent in  some  fifty  unrelated  and  use- 
less little  army  posts.  That  our  land 
forces  do  not  attract  to  their  enlisted 
130 


SUPPLEMENTARY  REFORMS 

ranks  the  best  class  of  young  men  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  service  in  insignificant 
army  posts,  situated  "back  home"  in 
some  congressman's  bailiwick  can  not 
be  other  than  unattractive.  For  purely 
political  reasons  we  possess  so  many 
army  posts,  for  so  few  soldiers,  that  a 
great  part  of  the  enlisted  man's  time 
must  be  spent  not  in  studying  his  pro- 
fession but  in  the  unkeep  of  the  build- 
ings and  grounds;  grass  cutting  is  sub- 
stituted for  rifle  practice,  and  shoveling 
snow  for  manoeuvers. 

Secretary  Garrison's  plan  to  estab- 
lish a  volunteer  continental  army  of 
400,000  men  is  impractical.  In  addi- 
tion, it  is  founded  on  false  principles. 
It  is  not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty,  of 
every  citizen  to  defend  his  country.  In 
the  present  day  and  generation  one  can- 
not defend  his  country  unless  one  has 
131 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

been  suitably  prepared  and  trained. 
Therefore  such  preparation  should  be 
general  and  compulsory.  Pericles  said, 
"If  ye  would  save  your  country,  you 
must  go  and  stand  in  the  ranks  your- 
selves." It  is  as  unpatriotic  and  un- 
democratic to  hire  men  to  fight  for  us 
as  it  would  be  to  hire  them  to  vote  for 
us.  The  only  good  thing  that  can  be 
said  for  the  Garrison  plan  is  that  any- 
thing would  be  better  than  what  we  now 
have. 


132 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   NATION   ON   TRIAL 

IT  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  present  ad- 
ministration will  not  continue  to 
support  the  policy  which  brought  us 
disaster  in  1812  and  which  was  re- 
sponsible for  the  occurrence  of  the  Civil 
War.  If  it  does  decide  to  continue  in 
its  dilatory  tactics,  it  will,  in  order  to 
hold  its  prestige,  be  forced  by  public 
sentiment  at  least  to  seem  to  do  some- 
thing. It  must  create  the  impression 
that  it  labors  in  the  cause  of  prepared- 
ness if  only  in  order  to  lessen  the  chance 
that  its  opponents  in  the  next  election 
will  make  preparedness  the  dominant 
issue.  To  steal  the  thunder  of  its  ad- 
133 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

versaries,  it  may  make  trivial  changes 
in  our  present  army  and  navy  and 
thereafter  point  with  pride  to  its  efforts 
in  the  cause  of  preparedness. 

It  is  perhaps  too  early  to  determine 
whether  the  present  administration  is 
really  trying  to  bring  about  a  state  of 
adequate  preparedness,  or  if  its  leaders, 
asleep  to  the  needs  of  the  country,  are 
merely  embarking  upon  a  voyage  of 
compromises  and  subterfuges.  Results 
are  always  the  final  test.  Mr.  Wilson 
came  into  office  a  teacher  and  a  theorist, 
with  little  of  that  experience  called 
"practical." 

He  apparently  believes  that  wars  are 
things  of  the  past.  His  administration 
officially  recommended  that  it  might  be 
well  to  use  our  battle-ships  to  carry  the 
mails,  or  as  public  training  schools  for 
boys. 

134 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

To-day  he  evidently  feels  that,  no 
matter  what  wicked  foreign  nations 
may  be  perpetrating,  for  the  United 
States  at  least  war  is  an  anacronism 
and  the  nation  is  growing  more  and 
more  out  of  sympathy  with  his  present 
policy  based  on  that  idea. 

The  other  members  of  the  admini- 
stration do  not  altogether  command 
public  confidence;  one  especially  mis- 
trusts any  who  belong  to  the  Bryan 
faction,  of  whom  Josephus  Daniels  is 
but  one  example.  Mr.  Daniels  is  an 
exceedingly  shrewd  and  expert  poli- 
tician. It  would  be  a  mistake  to  meas- 
ure his  general  political  ability  by  his 
ignorance  of  naval  affairs.  Few  poli- 
tical tricks  are  unknown  to  this  man 
who  was  a  faithful  follower  of  Bryan 
during  sixteen  unfruitful  years. 

He  is  suspected  of  several  clever 
135 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

ruses  the  object  of  which  is  to  abate 
without  satisfying  the  public  clamor  for 
preparedness.  His  demand  for  fifty 
small  so-called  coast-defense  subma- 
rines is  an  example.  In  point  of  fact 
the  day  of  toy  submarines  is  past,  and 
the  era  of  submersible  cruisers,  which 
can  attack  the  enemy's  battle-ships 
upon  the  high  seas,  or  voyage  unaccom- 
panied from  the  Kiel  Canal  to  the  Hel- 
lespont, has  begun.  Even  Mr.  Daniels 
must  know  that  until  we  can  build  up  an 
adequate  army  the  only  way  to  protect 
ourselves  from  invasion  is  to  dominate 
the  ocean  between  us  and  possible  ene- 
mies, and  that  once  our  inadequate  fleet 
was  sunk  or  driven  into  harbors,  no 
number  of  small  submarines  could  pre- 
vent a  landing  from  being  made  some- 
where along  our  5500  miles  of  coast  line. 
Germany's  fleet  of  submarines  has  yet 
136 


©  Brown  B 


PRESIDENT  EMERITUS  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT 
Preparationist 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

to  sink  a  single  British  transport  carry- 
ing troops  to  the  ports  of  Calais  and 
Boulogne,  and  even  if  transports  had 
been  sunk,  the  landing  of  other  troops 
would  not  thereby  have  been  prevented, 
for  it  is  a  soldier's  duty  to  take  risks. 
Moreover,  the  safe  bases  of  the  German 
submarines  would  within  a  week  be  de- 
stroyed by  British  landing  parties  were 
it  not  for  the  German  army,  which  pro- 
tects them. 

Great  Britain  has  been  saved  from 
invasion  not  by  submarines  and  coast 
defense  vessels  but  by  her  capital  ships 
which  alone  control  the  seas.  This  les- 
son is  one  for  America  soberly  and  seri- 
ously to  consider. 

During  the  last  decade  our  naval  pol- 
icy has  been  renewed  year  by  year.  In 
that  time  we  have  built  battle-ships  at 
a  rate  of  approximately  two  and  a  half 
137 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

a  year,  and  no  single  Congress  has  ever 
received  credit  for  authorizing  more 
than  three  capital  ships.  The  keen  po- 
litical mind  of  Daniels  evidently  per- 
ceived a  chance  to  befog  the  issue  of 
1916  by  placing  before  Congress  a  bill 
demanding  the  building  of  twenty  bat- 
tle-ships in  the  next  eight  years.  He 
thus  creates  the  impression  that  he  is 
about  to  construct  twenty  battle-ships 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  merely 
recommending  the  perpetuation  for 
eight  years  to  come  of  the  totally  in- 
adequate rate  of  increase  of  the  last 
decade ! 

It  is  true  that  the  size  of  the  battle- 
ships we  build  is  constantly  being  en- 
larged, but  this  fact  is  not  significant 
since  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  ships  of 
other  nations  is  even  greater. 

President  Wilson,  in  his  message  to 
138 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

Congress,  recommended  the  building  of 
only  ten  battle-ships,  in  the  next  five 
years;  whereby  in  effect  he  approves 
the  building  of  even  fewer  battle-ships 
in  future  than  we  have  per  year  aver- 
aged to  add  to  our  navy  in  the  past. 

Dreadnoughts  and  super-dread- 
noughts are  technically  classed  as  capi- 
tal ships.  These  carry  at  least  eight 
modern  high-power  big  guns,  and  are 
able  to  steam  twenty-one  or  more  knots 
an  hour.  Of  such  ships  Great  Britain 
has  forty-three,  Germany  twenty-six 
and  Japan  twelve.  We  have  only 
twelve  at  present  in  service.  Sea  con- 
trol absolutely  depends  upon  the  pos- 
session of  these  ships.  Our  obsolete 
battle-ships,  which  carry  four  old  type 
guns  and  steam  only  seventeen  or  eigh- 
teen knots,  can  in  no  way  affect  sea  su- 
premacy. Such  ships  are  useless  ex- 
139 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

cept  to  a  navy  which  already  controls 
the  ocean,  in  which  case  they  are  of  serv- 
ice for  patrol  or  blockade  duty. 

The  reason  that  capital  ships  are 
necessary  to  maintain  sea  control  is  ex- 
plained by  the  simple  fact  that  in  battle 
a  ship  having  great  speed  and  long- 
range  guns  can  choose  and  maintain 
just  that  distance  which  will  permit 
her  to  pound  a  smaller  ship  to  pieces, 
while  remaining  herself  outside  the 
range  of  that  enemy's  less  powerful 
guns. 

Although  we  possess  some  first-class, 
capital  ships,  in  war  time  these  would  be 
almost  hopelessly  handicaped  by  our 
lack  of  proper  auxiliaries.  Four  for- 
eign nations  each  own  battle-cruisers 
which  carry  eight  high-power  guns  and 
can  steam  more  than  thirty-one  knots 
an  hour.  We  have  no  battle-cruisers 
140 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

either  built  or  authorized.  We  have  no 
scout  cruisers  less  than  ten  years  old. 
In  the  Battle  of  the  North  Sea  the 
cruiser  BlilcTier  was  sunk  by  the  British 
because  she  could  not  exceed  a  speed  of 
twenty-six  knots  an  hour.  We  have  no 
cruiser  that  can  approach  twenty-four. 
Although  our  navy  list  contains  the 
names  of  sixty-two  destroyers,  a  score 
of  these  were  built  fifteen  years  ago,  and 
we  have  only  three  which  can  make  more 
than  thirty-one  knots  an  hour.  The 
enemy's  battle-cruisers  would  run  down 
the  others  as  a  wolf  runs  down  sheep. 
Nine  voters  out  of  ten,  however,  are 
to-day  fooled  by  clever  sophistry  like 
that  of  Mr.  Daniels.  This  will,  we 
trust,  by  November,  1916,  no  longer  be 
the  case,  for  even  to-day  thousands  of 
men  of  prominence  and  power  who  less 
than  a  year  ago  were  indifferent  or  op- 
141 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

posed  to  any  increase  of  army  or  navy 
are  to-day  better  informed  and  are  join- 
ing the  general  cry  for  an  adequate  de- 
fense which  shall  be  in  proportion  to 
our  wealth  and  population,  and  num- 
bered with  due  regard  to  the  dangers 
which  now  walk  abroad. 

Six  months  ago  any  one  who  talked 
about  a  foe  invading  America  was  con- 
sidered sensational;  to-day  the  majority 
of  our  most  thoughtful,  educated  citi- 
zens are  ready  to  accept  the  possibility 
of  war,  and  are  eager  to  make  due  prep- 
aration to  prevent  it. 

The  reconstruction  of  our  army  and 
our  navy,  however,  even  though  it  is 
attempted  with  vast  appropriations  of 
money  and  countless  numbers  of  men, 
will  not  of  necessity  give  us  an  effective 
army  or  an  efficient  navy.  All  the 
wars  in  history  have  proved  that  it 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

is  always  organization  and  discipline 
which  win  against  numbers.  At  this 
moment  preparation  for  defense  has  al- 
ready become  in  the  minds  of  the  ma- 
jority the  one  great  national  problem, 
the  rational  solution  of  which  will  in  the 
next  few  years  elect  presidents,  develop 
statesmen,  and  undermine  many  a  pop- 
ular politician.  Even  now  laggards 
are  running  to  cover  or  hastening  to 
enlist  in  the  popular  cause. 

In  the  early  forties,  my  great-uncle, 
George  Bradburn,  the  anti-slavery  ora- 
tor, was  often  pelted  with  rotten  eggs 
and  cabbages  because  he  spoke  for  abo- 
lition. On  such  occasions  he  used  to 
cry:  "Gentlemen,  if  you  wish  fame, 
join  us  now;  to-morrow  the  cause  will 
have  grown  popular,  and  even  rascals 
will  be  with  us.  The  mob  will  then 
cheer  what  they  now  hiss."  It  is  the 
143 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

duty  of  our  public  men  to  interest  them- 
selves in  the  question  of  national  de- 
fense now  while  their  help  is  all  impor- 
tant; to-morrow  all  creation  will  cry, 
"Prepare!" 

It  is  not  alone  the  politicians  who 
must  concern  themselves  in  the  matter, 
but  the  citizens  of  the  nation.  National 
defense  is  every  man's  business  and 
every  man's  duty.  The  fatal  mistakes 
that  Congress  has  heretofore  made  in 
managing  military  affairs,  and  the  reck- 
less waste  of  public  funds  voted  for  mil- 
itary equipment,  would  not  have  been 
possible  if  the  public  had  taken  greater 
personal  interest  in  the  army  and  navy 
and  kept  informed  as  to  the  use  of  na- 
tional appropriations.  Our  army  costs 
one  hundred  times  as  much  per  man 
available  for  defensive  duty  as  the  Swiss 
army,  and  is  far  less  efficient  and  less 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

ready  for  emergencies.     For  this  the 
nation  is  now  on  trial. 

If  our  present  leaders  will  not  make 
any  of  the  basic  moves  which  might  lead 
to  better  things ;  if  they  will  not  nation- 
alize the  militia,  if  they  will  not  quad- 
ruple the  capacity  of  West  Point,  if 
they  will  not  give  the  heads  of  the  army 
and  navy  the  privilege  of  the  floor  in  the 
House  and  Senate,  if  they  will  not  elim- 
inate strike  duty  for  militia,  if  they  will 
not  abolish  the  forty  useless  and  ex- 
pensive little  army  posts,  which  were  es- 
tablished and  are  maintained  for  pork- 
barrel  purposes,  if  they  will  not  appoint 
proper  ministers  of  war  and  marine, 
and,  above  all,  if  they  persist  in  polit- 
ical subterfuges,  then  they  must  not  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  power.  They 
must  be  overwhelmingly  defeated  in 
1916.  That  election  will  then  be  the 
145 


THE  WRITING  ON  THE  WALL 

first  time  since  1860  upon  which  has  de- 
pended the  fate  of  our  nation. 

I  am  advised  by  legal  authorities  that 
Section  Eight  of  the  First  Article  of 
the  Constitution,  which  empowers  the 
National  Congress  to  raise  and  support 
armies,  gives  Congress,  by  virtue  of 
subsequent  interpretations,  all  the  au- 
thority necessary  to  institute  in  the 
United  States  the  Swiss  system  of  gen- 
eral compulsory  service,  or  any  other 
military  system  deemed  necessary, 
without  the  delay  of  referring  the  mat- 
ter to  the  vote  of  the  individual  States. 

This  fact  has  a  most  vital  bearing  on 
the  fate  of  the  United  States.  It  sig- 
nifies that  if  one  of  the  contending  polit- 
ical parties,  in  the  Presidential  election 
of  1916,  makes  the  question  of  ade- 
quate military  preparedness  its  plat- 
form and  wins  a  decisive  victory,  the 
146 


THE  NATION  ON  TRIAL 

Congress  then  elected  can  within  a  few 
months  pass  all  enactments  necessary 
for  the  institution  of  general  military 
service,  adequate  national  defense,  and 
valid  peace  insurance. 

As  matters  stand  to-day,  our  nation 
is  doomed  to  irretrievable  disaster  in  its 
next  war. 

No  sacrifices  made  after  the  hour  has 
struck  will  avail  to  save  us. 

It  is  not  upon  the  battle-fields  of  that 
war  that  our  national  existence  is  to  be 
saved,  but  in  the  next  Presidential  cam- 
paign. 

Aux  armes,  citoyen^I  Formez  voa 
bataillons! 


CONCLUSION 

IT  is  not  only  the  right  but  the  duty 
of  all  able-bodied  citizens  to  defend 
their  native  land.  Modern  warfare, 
however,  is  waged  in  a  manner  so  intri- 
cate and  so  scientific  that  it  is  impossible 
for  untrained  individuals  to  help  de- 
fend their  country.  Therefore  mili- 
tary training  should  be  universal.  To 
be  universal  it  must  be  compulsory. 
Therefore  the  United  States  should 
adopt  a  system  of  universal  compulsory 
training.  This  system  should  be  pat- 
terned upon  those  of  Switzerland  and 
Australia,  since  these  have  proved  ade- 
quate without  being  unduly  burden- 
some to  citizens,  and  since  they  make 
148 


CONCLUSION 

provision  for  defense  only  and  do  not 
contemplate  attacks  upon  neighbor- 
ing nations.  Our  system  should  be 
planned  out  by  those  of  our  country- 
men who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  the 
study  and  practice  of  military  matters, 
and  not  by  party  politicians. 


149 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

PUBLIC  OPINION  ON  PREPAREDNESS 

IT  was  made  clear  to-day  that  the  in- 
fluence of  President  Wilson  and  his 
Administration  would  be  opposed  to 
the  proposal  of  Representative  Augus- 
tus P.  Gardner  of  Massachusetts  for  a 
public  enquiry  by  a  commission  of  Con- 
gress into  the  allegations  that  the  naval 
and  military  forces  of  the  United  States 
were  not  prepared  for  war.  Represen- 
tative Sherley  of  Kentucky,  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Fortifications,  will 
lead  the  opposition  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  it  is  already  ap- 
parent that  he  will  have  the  backing  of 
153 


APPENDIX 

several  of  the  Democratic  leaders  in 
that  body. 

The  President  is  understood  to  be  of 
the  opinion  that  no  good  can  be  accom- 
plished at  this  uncertain  time  by  a  sen- 
sational agitation  of  this  topic.  .  .  .  the 
President  .  .  .  will  be  disposed  to  op- 
pose anything  that  savors  of  a  propa- 
ganda to  give  the  country  the  impres- 
sion that  from  a  military  and  naval 
viewpoint  the  United  States  is  in  a  bad 
way. 

— New  York  Times,  December  5,  1914- 

Representative  Gardner's  demand 
for  a  hearing  on  his  resolution  for  an 
investigation  into  the  military  prepared- 
ness of  the  country  was  voted  down  to- 
day by  the  House  Rules  Committee  by 
a  straight  party  vote  of  five  to  three. 
All  the  Democrats  voted  against  it. 

— New  York  Times,  December  13,  1914- 
154 


APPENDIX 

Mr.  Gardner  before  the  House  Na- 
val Committee,  December  10,  declared 
that  "if  war  were  to  break  out  to-day, 
it  would  be  found  that  our  coast  de- 
fenses had  not  sufficient  ammunition 
for  an  hour's  fighting. 

'We  must  depend  in  every  time  of 
national  peril,  upon  citizenry  trained 
and  accustomed  to  arms,'  says  the 
President. 

"But  how  are  we  to  get  enough  citi- 
zenry, as  he  calls  us  ordinary  people? 
Does  the  President  realize  that  there 
are  only  120,000  militiamen  in  this 
whole  nation?  Does  he  understand 
that  23,000  of  them  did  not  even  ap- 
pear last  year  for  annual  inspection? 
Does  he  know  that  31,000  did  not  ap- 
pear at  the  annual  encampment?  Is  he 
aware  that  53,000,  or  nearly  half  of  this 
citizenry,  never  appeared  at  the  rifle 
155 


APPENDIX 

range  during  the  whole  course  of  last 
year?  Where  is  this  citizenry  to  get 
the  weapons  of  war?  According  to  the 
last  report  of  the  Chief  of  the  Staff  we 
are  short  316  field  guns  and  1,322,384 
rounds  of  ammunition  necessary  to 
equip  our  militia  in  time  of  war.  Last 
year  General  Wood  asked  for  enough 
guns  and  ammunition  to  bring  the 
United  States  up  to  the  standard  of 
Bulgaria.  That  immodest  demand  was 
gently  but  firmly  rejected. 

"The  statement  that  we  have  only 
enough  field  artillery  ammunition  to 
last  for  a  single  day's  battle  if  all 
our  guns  were  engaged  was  made  to 
me  by  one  of  the  highest  officers  in  the 
United  States  army.  The  Chief  of 
the  Staff  tells  us  that  the  ammunition 
for  the  coast  defense  mortars  would 
last  one-half  hour,  and  for  the  coast 
156 


APPENDIX 

defense  guns  three  quarters  of  an  hour." 
— New  York  Times,  December  lly  1914' 

Secretary  Daniels,  at  a  luncheon  fol- 
lowing the  launching  of  the  U.  S.  ship 
Pennsylvania,  said :  "There  never  was 
a  time  when  the  navy  was  so  powerful, 
so  ready,  so  efficient,  as  now." 

Rear- Admiral  Bradley  Allen  Fiske, 
Aid  for  Operations  in  the  Navy  De- 
partment. "Resigned"  April,  1915. 
Previously  he  had  made  certain  state- 
ments to  the  House  Committee  on 
Navy  Affairs. 

These  statements  did  not  jibe  with 
some  previously  made  by  Secretary 
Daniels.  Among  the  remarks  made  by 
Admiral  Fiske  were  the  following  ones : 

"I  think  it  is  well  known  that  we  are 
behind  other  nations  in  mines  and  air- 
157 


APPENDIX 

craft  and  that  in  case  of  an  attack  upon 
our  coasts  the  need  would  be  keenly  felt. 
If  we  should  become  involved  in  war  we 
might  be  attacked  very  quickly,  pos- 
sibly in  the  vicinity  of  New  York. 

"Every  navy  with  the  exception  of 
our  own  has  an  organization  that  is 
thoroughly  military.  Every  possible 
contingency  has  been  carefully  worked 
out  and  provided  for,  and  the  game  of 
war  is  changed  from  time  to  time  as 
conditions  change.  The  Admiralties 
in  charge  of  the  navies  of  other  countries 
keep  them  up  to  a  stage  of  war  at  all 
times,  and  the  general  organization  is  as 
complete  as  the  general  organization  of 
the  individual  ship.  Every  nation  that 
has  a  navy,  including  Argentina,  han- 
dles that  branch  of  the  service  through 
a  general  staff,  with  the  sole  exception 
of  the  United  States." 
158 


APPENDIX 

In  answer  to  a  question  of  Mr.  Rob- 
erts :  "Then  if  we  have  a  war  to-mor- 
row we  must  handle  our  navy  in  a  hap- 
hazard way?'*  he  answered,  "Yes,  that 
is  true." 

In  answer  to  the  question:  "How 
near  New  York  City  would  a  hostile 
fleet  have  to  come  to  use  its  aircraft  in 
dropping  bombs  on  that  city?"  he  re- 
plied: "They  could  direct  them  from 
quite  a  distance  out  in  the  ocean,  and  I 
think  they  could  probably  send  them  in 
from  four  hundred  to  five  hundred 
miles." 

Admiral  Fiske  further  stated  that  it 
would  take  from  three  to  five  years  to 
put  the  navy  of  the  United  States  into 
serviceable  condition. 

He  said,  "Twenty-one  ships  of  our 
battle  fleet  and  some  destroyers  are  ef- 
ficiently manned,  but  there  are  not  suf- 
159 


APPENDIX 

ficient  officers  and  enlisted  men  to  man 
our  other  ships. 

"The  gunnery  of  other  nations  is  su- 
perior to  our  own — a  very  small  differ- 
ence in  gunnery  might  turn  the  tide  of 
battle  if  we  ever  come  in  contact  with 
an  enemy. 

"We  have  one  mine  layer.  We  need 
five  additional  mine  layers.  On  board 
that  one  mine  layer  are  only  three  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  mines.  Germany 
had  twenty  thousand  mines  when  the 
war  started." 


In  a  supplementary  written  state- 
ment to  the  House  Naval  Committee 
to-day,  Rear-Admiral  Victor  Blue, 
Chief  of  the  Navigation  Bureau,  said 
the  navy  was  suffering  more  from  a 
160 


APPENDIX 

shortage  of  officers  than  from  a  short- 
age of  men. 

"There  are  altogether  4565  men  and 
203  line  officers  short  of  the  number  nec- 
essary to  man  the  vessels  of  military 
value  which  can  be  used  in  time  of  war," 
he  said.  "While  there  is  little  doubt 
that  this  demand  would  be  met  by  the 
ex-service  men  now  in  civil  life,  confu- 
sion and  delay  would  result  unless  or- 
ganization was  perfected  prior  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  war. 

"A  shortage  of  officers  in  the  total  re- 
quired is  more  serious  than  that  of  men. 
It  will  necessarily  be  several  years  be- 
fore the  requirements  can  be  met,  as  the 
supply  of  officers  is  regulated  by  the 
naval  academy  yearly  output.  From 
captain  to  admiral  officers  are  being  pro- 
moted at  an  age  that  will  permit  of  very 
161 


APPENDIX 

little  service  in  the  latter  grade  before 
retirement.  A  board  which  has  been 
considering  these  conditions  is  now  pre- 
paring its  report." 

— New  York  Times,  December  13,  1914- 

Captain  Gardner  of  the  navy  has 
said:  "The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that 
the  United  States  navy  instead  of  mak- 
ing any  important  advance  is  deteriorat- 
ing relatively  compared  with  the  navies 
of  other  nations.  We  lack  scout  sub- 
marines, aeroplanes  and  ammunitions. 

"Eighty  fighting  vessels  of  our  mod- 
est navy  are  not  available  for  battle." 

Admiral  Dewey  has  said,  "It  cannot 
be  too  often  repeated  that  ships  without 
a  trained  personnel  to  man  and  fight 
them  are  useless  for  the  purposes  of  war. 
The  training  needed  for  the  purpose  is 
long  and  arduous  and  cannot  be  done 
162 


APPENDIX 

after  the  outbreak  of  war.  This  must 
have  been  provided  for  long  previous  to 
the  beginning  of  hostilities.  Any  ship 
of  the  fleet  found  at  the  outbreak  of  war 
without  provision  having  been  made  for 
its  manning  by  officers  and  men  trained 
for  the  service  can  be.  counted  as  only  a 
useless  mass  of  steel  whose  existence 
leads  only  to  a  false  security." 

Secretary  Daniels  announces  details  of 
National  Defense  Program. 
President  Wilson  will  urge  Congress 
to  adopt  the  five-year  program  of  naval 
increase    recommended    by    Secretary 
Daniels.     Here  are  the  new  units,  which 
it  is  proposed  to  add  to  the  navy  dur- 
ing that  period: 


163 


APPENDIX 

1917  1918  1919  19SO  1921  Total 

Battleships    2  2  2  2  2  10 

Battle-cruisers     2  0  1  2  1  6 

Scout-cruisers  3  1  2  2  2  10 

Destroyers  15  10  5  10  10  50 

Fleet  submarines   5  4  2  2  2  15 

Coast  submarines    ...  25  15  15  15  15  85 

Gunboats    2  1  0  0  0  3 

Hospital  ship   , 1  0  0  0  0  1 

Ammunition  ships  ...     0  0  0  1  1  9 

Fuel  oil  ships  0  1  0  1  0  2 

Repair  ship    0  0  0  0  1  1 

Total     55      34      27      35      34       185 

AUTHOR'S  NOTE — We  have  built  twenty-five  battle- 
ships in  the  last  ten  years. 

— New  York  Times,  October  W,  1915. 

Claude    Kitchin    of    North    Carolina, 
floor  leader  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives gives  reasons  for  his  op- 
position to  Wilsons  program. 
"This  sudden,  radical,  and  stupen- 
dous move  for  war  preparations  is  go- 
ing to  shock  the  civilized  world.     The 
militarists  and  war  traffickers  of  every 
nation  will  point  to  our  conduct  as  a 
164? 


APPENDIX 

reason  why  they  should  renew  war 
preparations  on  a  larger  scale  than  ever 
before,  on  a  scale  limited  only  by  the 
ability  of  the  nations  undertaking  it. 
However  our  own  people  may  remain  in 
ignorance  of  the  terrible  seriousness  of 
the  preparedness  program,  every  other 
country  will  feel  convinced  that  in  this 
tremendous  self-imposed  burden  upon 
our  resources  we  have  other  designs 
than  mere  self-defense. 

"They  know,  if  our  people  do  not, 
that  our  navy  to-day  is  twice  as  large  as 
Japan's,  and  that  it  is  far  superior  to 
that  of  Germany.  This  is  the  absolute 
fact,  and  it  is  not  to  be  lied  away  by 
such  a  false  and  deceitful  publication  as 
the  'Navy  Year  Book,'  which  is  issued 
by  our  Navy  Department,  or  by  any 
statements  of  the  so-called  'patriotic'  de- 
fense leagues  that  are  now  playing  the 
165 


APPENDIX 

game  of  the  war  traffickers  and  the  peo- 
ple who  want  to  make  their  millions 
by  the  sale  of  munitions  to  our  Govern- 
ment. I  cannot  listen  with  any  pa- 
tience whatever  to  this  talk  that  we 
are  unprepared,  because  I  know  from 
personal  experience  in  Congress  and 
by  long  study  that  this  is  not  the 
case." 

— New  York  Times,  November  19,  1915. 

There  was  great  rejoicing  through- 
out the  navy  not  long  ago  when  it  was 
announced  that  a  sum  approximately 
$2,000,000  was  available  from  previous 
appropriations  for  the  purchase  of  a 
modern  vessel  to  supplant  the  hospital 
ship  Solace  which  has  long  been  recog- 
nized as  hopelessly  inadequate  for  the 
needs  of  our  modern  fleet. 

This  rejoicing  was  short  lived,  for  it 
166 


APPENDIX 

was  learned  that  because  of  his  great 
solicitude  lest  America  should  be  sus- 
pected of  war-like  preparations,  Secre- 
tary Bryan  had  vetoed  the  proposal  and 
the  plan  to  provide  a  properly  equipped 
haven  for  the  sick  men  in  the  service 
was  abandoned. 

According  to  naval  officers  familiar 
with  the  circumstances,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  Daniels  was  talking  with  Secre- 
tary of  State  Bryan  when  he  happened 
to  mention  that  the  fleet  was  about  to 
get  a  new  hospital  ship  and  that  it  would 
be  paid  for  and  equipped  with  money 
that  was  available  from  the  savings  of 
bureaus  in  the  Navy  Department.  The 
Secretary  of  State  frowned  upon  the 
proposal,  promptly  asserting  that  in  his 
opinion  it  would  be  an  unwise  move  to 
acquire  such  a  vessel  since  to  do  so  might 
create  the  impression  that  the  United 
167 


APPENDIX 

States  was  preparing  for  trouble  some- 
where. 

"General  Boards  of  the  navy  have  ad- 
vised, time  and  time  again,"  a  naval  of- 
ficer said  yesterday,  "the  construction 
of  a  hospital  ship  worthy  of  the  service, 
but  up  to  the  present  Congress  has  not 
seen  fit  to  pass  the  legislation  that  would 
make  possible  this  much  needed  addi- 
tion to  the  greatest  of  American  fleets. 

"Immediately  following  the  occupa- 
tion of  Vera  Cruz  by  naval  forces  under 
Admiral  Fletcher  last  April,  which  cost 
the  fleet  nineteen  lives  and  scores  of 
wounded  bluejackets  and  marines,  the 
fact  that  the  naval  service  was  badly  off 
so  far  as  fleet  hospital  equipment  was 
concerned,  was  brought  home  forcibly 
to  the  authorities  of  Washington.  It 
was  admitted  on  all  sides  that  the  situa- 
tion demanded  immediate  attention. 
168 


APPENDIX 

"Naval  officers  thereupon  began  to 
look  about  for  a  way  to  give  the  fleet  a 
fit  hospital  ship.  It  was  found  that  up- 
ward of  $2,000,000  was  available  from 
previous  naval  appropriations  which, 
under  the  law,  could  be  used  to  purchase 
a  modern  liner,  and  that  enough  money 
would  be  left  over  to  pay  for  the  trans- 
formation of  the  liner  from  a  passenger 
ship  to  a  hospital  ship.  The  proposal 
was  submitted  to  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
Daniels,  and  he  approved  it  and  told  of- 
ficers to  go  ahead.  Surgeon  Theodore 
W.  Richards,  one  of  the  best-known 
medical  officers  in  the  navy,  was  selected 
to  superintend  the  conversion  of  the 
liner  into  a  hospital  ship,  and  he  came 
to  New  York  with  approved  plans  in  his 
possession.  The  ship  selected  was  one 
of  the  best  vessels  of  the  Ward  line." 

Now  that  the  navy's  dream  of  a 
169 


APPENDIX 

proper  floating  hospital  has  been  shat- 
tered, the  Solace,  a  ship  of  only  3300 
tons,  twenty  years  old,  and  very  much 
the  worse  for  wear,  is  being  made  ready 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  to  ac- 
company the  Atlantic  Fleet  on  its  an- 
nual winter  exercises  off  Guantanamo. 
— New  York  Times,  January  11,  1915. 

"In  the  first  place,"  said  Mr.  Daniels, 
"if  we  eliminate  from  consideration  the 
three  dreadnoughts  authorized  and  the 
proceeds  from  the  sale  of  the  Missis- 
sippi and  the  Idaho  to  Greece  we  have 
a  balance  available  from  previous  ap- 
propriations and  the  total  to  be  ex- 
pended in  building  this  year  would  be 
$44,091,000.  We  shall  spend  $5,000,- 
000  more  than  we  did  last  year.  Now 
as  to  building  dreadnoughts  in  case  of 
emergency,  it  is  the  present  policy  to 
170 


APPENDIX 

equip  the  navy  yards  so  that  they  can 
build  battleships.  The  New  York 
Yard  is  now  prepared  to  carry  on  the 
building  of  two  dreadnoughts  at  once. 
We  are  going  to  build  submarines  at  the 
Portsmouth  Yard  and  we  can  build  va- 
rious auxiliaries  at  Philadelphia,  Bos- 
ton, and  Norfolk." 

"How  many  dreadnoughts,"  asked 
Mr.  Butler,  "could  we  build  after  we 
got  into  a  war?" 

"The  private  yards  that  contract  for 
battleships  have  a  known  capacity," 
said  the  Secretary.  "The  Cramps  can 
build  two  at  a  time.  The  Newport 
News  Shipbuilding  Company  could  do 
the  same,  the  Fore  River  Yard  a  like 
number,  and  the  New  York  Ship  Build- 
ing Company  the  same." 

Mr.  Browning  of  New  Jersey  inter- 
rupted to  say  that  the  New  York  Ship 
171 


APPENDIX 

Building  Company  had  three  slips  and 
could  build  three  dreadnoughts  at  one 
time.  Two  of  these  slips,  he  said,  were 
covered  so  that  construction  could  pro- 
ceed more  rapidly. 

"The  New  York  Yard,"  continued 
the  Secretary,  "could  build  one  ship  cer- 
tainly and  probably  two.  That  would 
make  ten  ships  that  could  be  under  con- 
struction in  case  of  emergency.  No 
yard  on  the  Pacific  coast  could  build 
even  one  battleship.  Mare  Island 
Yard  is  not  fitted  for  it,  and  it  would 
require  dredging  out  the  channel  to 
make  it  possible  there.  At  Bremerton, 
with  some  expenditure  of  money,  prep- 
aration could  be  made  for  building  a 
dreadnought,  but  that  would  be  out  of 
the  question  as  an  emergency  measure. 
League  Island  at  Philadelphia  can  now 
build  a  transport  but  it  would  be  neces- 
172 


APPENDIX 

sary  to  enlarge  the  slip  there  to  lay 
down  a  battleship.  I  hope  to  be  able 
to  recommend  next  year  that  the  yard 
there  be  improved  so  a  battleship  can  be 
built  there.  Under  pressure  it  would 
appear  we  can  build  ten  dreadnoughts 
at  one  time  in  the  country." 

"How  far  can  we  depend  on  getting 
them  built  in  time  to  use  them  in  a  war 
in  which  we  might  be  engaged?"  asked 
Mr.  Roberts. 

"That  all  depends  on  the  length  of 
the  war.  If  it  was  two  years  long  we 
could  not  get  them:  if  three  we  could/' 
replied  the  Secretary. 

Captain  Winterhalter,  the  Secre- 
tary's aid  for  material,  was  asked  his 
ideas  as  to  the  time  it  would  take  to  com- 
plete dreadnoughts  after  a  war  began. 
He  said  that  we  should  judge  by  what 
was  going  on  in  the  British  yards,  which 
173 


APPENDIX 

were  of  a  much  greater  capacity  than 
ours.  They  were  there  getting  out  in 
two  years  what  heretofore  had  taken 
three,  and  it  was  being  done  at  an  in- 
crease of  $2,000,000  in  the  cost  of  each 
ship.  He  thought  we  might  count  on 
finishing  ships  laid  down  after  a  declara- 
tion of  war  in  two  years,  the  time  usu- 
ally being  thirty  months.  This  in- 
cluded armor  and  armament.  The 
guns  could  be  produced  in  time  for  the 
finished  ships.  The  whole  matter 
would  depend  on  organization  and  the 
force  of  workmen  available. 

Coming  to  the  subject  of  aviation  for 
which  branch  of  the  service  the  gen- 
eral Board  urges  an  appropriation  of 
$5,000,000,  Secretary  Daniels  said: 

"I  appointed  a  board  on  aviation  a 
year  ago,  and  we  went  on  and  estab- 
lished an  aviation  school  at  Pensacola. 
174 


APPENDIX 

We  have  tried  to  get  a  good  type  of  ma- 
chine, but  so  far  have  not  succeeded. 
If  I  had  $5,000,000  now  I  could  not 
spend  it.  I  think  that  if  we  get  a  suc- 
cessful aeroplane  we  shall  have  to  build 
it  ourselves.  I  would  not  now  advise 
setting  up  a  plant  to  do  so,  but  we 
should  have  to  provide  a  plant  ulti- 
mately I  think.  All  we  need  now  we 
can  spend  under  the  appropriation  of 
$300,000  provided  in  the  allowances  for 
the  Bureaus  of  Construction  and  Re- 
pair and  Steam  Engineering.  At  pres- 
ent the  money  might  better  be  spent  in 
experimentation.  Next  winter  we  may 
be  able  to  present  a  program." 

"Well,  Mr.  Secretary,"  said  Mr. 
Roberts  with  an  accent  of  irritation, 
"we  have  in  all,  in  both  services  but 
twenty-three  aeroplanes,  and  Great 
Britain  has  1400  aeroplanes  and  12  diri- 
175 


APPENDIX 

gibles;  Germany  has  1400  aeroplanes 
and  60  dirigibles;  Russia  has  1000  aero- 
planes and  20  dirigibles;  France  has 
900  aeroplanes  and  30  dirigibles;  even 
Belgium  has  60  aeroplanes.  Austria 
has  600  aeroplanes  and  8  dirigibles. 
There  is  no  great  hope  we  shall  ever  get 
what  we  need  in  this  matter  unless 
the  department  makes  progress  and  is 
pushed  from  this  end." 

— New  York  Times,  December  1%,  1914> 

General  Wood  said  in  December, 
1914  before  the  House  Military  Com- 
mittee: "We  have  enough  field  guns 
for  an  army  of  40,000  men  and  a  sup- 
ply of  field  ammunition  which  would 
last  one  complete  day." 

The  concentration  of  our  army  on 
the  Mexican  border  in  1911,  required 
176 


APPENDIX 

ten  days.  The  Germans  mobilized 
1,500,000  in  seven  days  last  August. 
There  is  not  in  the  United  States  a  sin- 
gle one  of  the  heavy  field  mortars  which 
has  played  such  an  important  part  in 
the  European  war. 

No  provision  has  been  made  for  am- 
munition trains. 

Major-General  Leonard  Wood's  Ad- 
dress to  members  of  Technology 
Club,  Gramercy  Park. 

"We  have  got  to  make  a  lot  of  offi- 
cers," said  General  Wood.  "I  do  not 
think  that  the  people  realize  how  few 
we  have.  All  told  the  number  of  line 
officers  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
figures  include  those  of  the  National 
Guard  as  well  as  those  of  the  regular 
army,  do  not  total  much  more  than  11,- 
177 


APPENDIX 

000  men,  whereas  for  an  army  of  1,000,- 
000  men  we  would  need  at  least  35,000." 

— New  York  Times,  October  28,  1915. 

J.  H.  Hammond,  Jr. 

The  peoples  of  Europe  regard  the 
general  attitude  in  this  country  toward 
preparedness  as  one  of  the  inexplicable 
results  of  the  war,  according  to  John 
Hays  Hammond,  Jr.,  who  discussed 
last  night  the  Ford  peace  ship  and  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  in  the  present 
crisis.  He  has  just  returned  from 
England  and  France,  after  spending 
two  months  there  in  conference  with  the 
naval  and  military  authorities. 

"No  one  in  Europe  can  understand 

how  there  can  be  the  necessity  for  a 

campaign  for  preparedness  here,"  he 

said.     "They  seem  to  think  that  the 

178 


APPENDIX 

calamity  that  has  befallen  England, 
France,  and  Russia  should  be  sufficient 
argument  to  show  the  people  here  that 
preparedness  is  an  absolute  necessity  of 
national  existence. 

"The  navies  of  England  and  Ger- 
many will  be  twice  as  strong  at  the  end 
of  next  year,  while  that  of  the  United 
States,  even  if  the  outlined  plans  are 
carried  out,  will  only  occupy  the  same 
relative  position  as  it  does  now.  Then 
there  is  the  naval  program  being  carried 
out  by  Japan.  Their  navy  is  being 
rapidly  and  greatly  increased.  All  I 
can  say  is  that  it  is  significant  to  com- 
pare the  programs  of  the  United  States 
and  that  country. 

"It  seems  needless  to  comment  on  the 

anti-preparedness   or  peace  campaign 

being  carried  on  by  Henry  Ford  and 

Bryan.     Two  weeks  at  the  front,  any- 

179 


APPENDIX 

where  in  Europe — two  weeks  in  Eng- 
land or  France — would  show  them  that 
their  peace  proposal  is  absurd. 

"The  people  of  Europe  are  thinking 
of  anything  but  peace,  and  I  predict 
that  Mr.  Ford's  peace  ship  and  peace 
envoys  will  meet  with  a  very  frosty  re- 
ception. The  national  spirits  of  the 
various  countries  of  Europe  have  been 
aroused — of  Germany,  as  well  as  the 
Allies.  There  is  no  national  spirit 
here,  as  the  opposition  to  the  prepared- 
ness campaign  has  shown.  It  seems  as 
though  only  war  will  bring  it  out. 

"The  war  is  regarded  in  Europe  as 
the  greatest  argument  for  preparedness. 
France  and  England  feel  that  if  they 
had  been  prepared,  the  war  would  never 
have  taken  place.  It  was  only  their 
condition  of  comparative  unarmedness 
that  led  Germany  to  make  her  attempt 
180 


APPENDIX 

at  world  power.  They  have  learned 
their  lesson  well  during  the  long  months 
of  the  war  and  will  never  again  be 
found  unprepared. 

"I  would  not  be  surprised  to  see 
Henry  Ford  return  here  and  become 
one  of  the  most  ardent  advocates  for 
preparedness.  He  is  a  very  intelligent 
man  and  the  lesson  he  will  learn  will 
show  him  that  his  present  position  is 
both  unpatriotic  and  wrong." 

— New  York  Times,  November  26,  1915. 

Dr.    John    Grier   Hibben,    President 
Princeton.     Twenty-first  Lake  Mo- 
honk  Conference  on  National  Arbi- 
tration in  May,  1915. 
"I  do  not  advocate  preparedness  for 
war,"    he   said,    "but   a   preparedness 
against  war — a  preparedness  which  in 
the  event  of  the  catastrophe  of  war  it- 
181 


APPENDIX 

self  will  prevent  the  enormous  initial 
sacrifice  of  human  lives  which  has  char- 
acterized every  war  in  which  the  United 
States  has  been  engaged  throughout  our 
past  history. 

"No  one,"  he  declared,  "can  be  so 
blind  regarding  the  significance  of  pres- 
ent conditions  as  to  take  the  position 
that  a  grave  national  emergency  is  not 
at  least  a  possibility. 

"I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  the  peace 
propaganda  which  is  being  prosecuted 
in  many  of  our  schools,  so  far,  at  least, 
as  it  endeavors  to  quicken  the  peace 
sentiment  by  impressing  upon  the 
minds  of  the  young  children  the  horrors 
or  the  economical  losses  of  war.  .  .  . 

"By  all  means  let  us  pay  any  price 
which  can  buy  peace — restraint  of  pas- 
sion, long  sufferance,  sacrifice  of  ma- 
terial wealth  or  of  every  personal  con- 
182 


APPENDIX 

venience  and  comfort.  Let  us  sacrifice 
it  all,  everything  which  can  buy  peace. 
But  let  us  not  forget  that  there  are 
some  things  which  cannot  buy  peace. 
If  we  sacrifice  them  in  order  to  secure 
peace,  the  peace  thus  sought  becomes 
for  us  the  veriest  torment  of  a  living 
hell.  We  dare  not  trade  honor  for 
peace,  we  dare  not  betray  duty  in  order 
that  we  may  bargain  for  peace.  We 
dare  not  indulge  ourselves  in  the  en- 
joyment of  the  blessings  of  peace  while 
we  turn  deaf  ears  to  the  cry  of  distress 
or  to  the  summons  of  a  righteous  cause." 
Never  in  the  twenty-one  years  of  its 
existence  had  the  Lake  Mohonk  Con- 
ference heard  such  a  call  to  arms.  The 
Princeton  president's  appeal  aroused 
intense  interest  and  discussion  among 
the  more  than  two  hundred  delegates 
here  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 
183 


APPENDIX 

Roosevelt  after  reading  Wilson  anent 

the  Lusitania. 

"There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  man  be- 
ing too  proud  to  fight.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  nation  being  so  right  that 
it  does  not  need  to  convince  others  by 
force  that  it  is  right." 

Asked  if  he  cared  to  make  any  com- 
ment upon  the  speech  of  the  President, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  said : 

"I  think  that  China  is  entitled  to 
draw  all  the  comfort  she  can  from  this 
statement,  and  it  would  be  well  for  the 
United  States  to  ponder  seriously  what 
the  effect  upon  China  has  been  of  man- 
aging her  foreign  affairs  during  the  last 
fifteen  years  on  theory  thus  enunciated. 

"If  the  United  States  is  satisfied  with 

occupying    some    time    in   the    future 

the  precise  international  position  that 

China  now  occupies,  then  the  United 

184, 


APPENDIX 

States  can  afford  to  act  on  this  theory. 
But  it  cannot  act  on  this  theory  if  it  de- 
sires to  retain  or  regain  the  position 
won  for  it  by  the  men  who  fought  un- 
der Washington  and  by  the  men  who, 
in  the  days  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  wore 
the  blue  under  Grant  and  the  gray  un- 
der Lee.  .  .  ." 

— New  York  Times,  May  1®,  1915. 

Rev.  Dr.  Malcolm  James  MacLeod, 
Collegiate  Church  of  St.  Nicholas, 
Forty-eighth  Street.  Thanksgiving 
Day  Sermon  on  Preparedness. 

"I  am  sorry  to  confess  that  I  am  not 
an  optimist  in  believing  that  world 
peace  is  not  far  away.  The  old 
prophets  looked  forward  to  a  time  when 
swords  would  be  beaten  into  plow- 
shares, but  2500  years  have  passed  and 
we  seem  to  be  a  long  way  from  it  yet. 
185 


APPENDIX 

No  military  victory  is  going  to  bring 
it  about.  Nothing  is  going  to  bring  it 
about  but  a  change  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people. 

"We  hear  much  about  the  dangers 
of  militarism.  There  is  as  much  dan- 
ger of  militarism  in  our  country  as  there 
is  of  feudalism  or  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  Militarism  is  wicked.  No  true 
American  wants  it.  But  cowardly  ac- 
quiescence in  wrong  is  infinitely  more 
wicked.  It  is  possible  for  a  nation  to 
experience  the  loss  of  national  self-re- 
spect. 

"  I  do  not  believe  we  should  trust  the 
safety  of  the  institutions  that  we  love 
to  the  kindness  of  heart  of  any  sultan 
or  czar  or  mikado,  or  king,  or  kaiser. 
We  have  read  of  shocking  crimes  dur- 
ing the  year  that  would  have  made  a 
black  Hottentot  blush ;  helpless  mothers 
186 


APPENDIX 

with  their  babies  slaughtered;  Ameri- 
can citizens  drowned;  the  American 
flag  treated  with  contempt;  800,000 
Armenians  exterminated.  And  what 
have  we  done  to  correct  all  these  hor- 
rors? What  are  patience's  limits? 
'How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long?' 

"I  am  a  man  of  peace.  I  love  peace ; 
but  I  have  learned,  too,  that  there  are 
times  when  soft  words  have  no  weight. 
I  believe  in  Christian  meekness,  but  I 
think  when  you  're  dealing  with  pagans 
Christian  meekness  is  folderol.  I  be- 
lieve in  nonresistance  when  my  own  in- 
terests are  concerned,  but  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  nonresistance  when  my  family 
and  my  home  are  at  stake.  Then  I  be- 
lieve in  vigorous  resistance.  If  a  bully 
abuses  my  child  I  'm  not  too  proud  to 
fight,  and  I  'm  not  going  to  write  him 
any  letters.  I  want  to  thrash  him. 
187 


APPENDIX 

Jesus  used  a  scourge.  We  insure 
against  fire,  why  not  insure  against  the 
greatest  calamity  that  ever  cursed  man- 
kind? The  nation  that  refuses  to  safe- 
guard its  homes  and  stand  up  for  the 
poor  and  oppressed,  or  to  champion  the 
cause  of  righteousness  and  justice  is  not 
worthy  of  its  liberty.  It  ought  to  be 
enslaved." 

— New  York  Times,  November  26,  1915. 

Plaza  Dinner.    Dr.  I.  lyenaga,  Jap- 
anese Professor. 

The  failure  of  Americans  to  under- 
stand the  position  of  Japan  in  the  Far 
East  is  likely  to  result  in  a  more  seri- 
ous situation  than  that  caused  by  the 
"Japan-California  controversy,"  Dr.  I 
lyenaga,  professor  of  history  at  the 
University  of  Chicago,  told  prominent 
Americans  and  Japanese  at  a  dinner 
188 


APPENDIX 

given  at  the  Hotel  Plaza  last  night  by 
Major  George  Haven  Putnam,  Charles 
A.  Coffin,  Lindsay  Russell,  and  Emer- 
son McMillin. 

"After  all  the  golden  words  for  Ja- 
pan which  I  have  heard  from  so  many 
distinguished  Americans,"  he  said,  "I 
don't  know  if  it  is  right  for  me  to  speak 
bluntly,  but  the  chairman  has  asked  me 
to  speak,  and  it  would  be  discourteous 
of  me  to  remain  silent.  Even  at  the 
height  of  the  California-Japanese  con- 
troversy, that  affair  appeared  to  me  as 
less  serious  than  the  matter  which  has 
been  before  us  in  the  past  few  weeks. 
Until  Japan  and  America  come  to  a 
better  understanding  and  until  Ameri- 
cans see  and  appreciate  the  position  of 
Japan  in  the  Far  East,  I  am  afraid  that 
it  will  be  a  little  more  serious  than  at 
present. 

189 


APPENDIX 

"You  know  that  Japan  is  only  about 
one  half  the  size  of  Texas  and  has  a 
population  about  two  thirds  of  that  of 
the  United  States.  Now  what  are  we 
going  to  do  ?  How  is  our  nation  going 
to  continue  to  exist  in  so  small  a  terri- 
tory? We  are  advised  to  promote  in- 
dustries and  create  wealth.  We  are 
doing  that  as  well  as  we  can,  but  our 
resources  are  limited." 

— New  York  Times,  May  W,  1915. 

Professor  Kirchwey  would  call  World 
Council  to  draft  new  War  Rules. 
Columbia's     pacifists     heard     Prof. 
George  W.  Kirchwey  and  Prof.  John 
W.  Erskine  plead  against  a  rush  to 
arms  yesterday  in   Havemeyer  Hall. 
The  theme  was  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania. 

Professor  Kirchwey  was  applauded 
190 


APPENDIX 

when  he  declared  he  would  never  go  to 
war  for  national  honor.  He  said  the 
questions  arising  out  of  the  Lusitania 
were  purely  legal  and  he  would  have  the 
President  call  a  conference  of  all  na- 
tions, whether  neutral  or  at  war,  to 
draft  a  new  code  of  war  rules. 

"I  am  frank  to  say,  and  you  may  call 
me  any  kind  of  pacifist  you  wish,"  said 
Professor  Kirchwey,  "that  I  would 
never  to  go  to  war  because  the  honor 
of  the  country  was  affronted  any  more 
than  I  would  shoot  a  man  who  insulted 
me  in  the  street.  It  might  be  that  I 
might  not  kill  him  because  I  was  re- 
strained and  forced  to  count  one  hun- 
dred. America,  even  if  her  honor  has 
been  affronted,  has  had  time  to  count 
and  has  no  reason  for  going  to  war  now. 

"My  advice  to  the  President  would 
be:  Don't  be  too  fine  or  too  stiff 
191 


APPENDIX 

about  the  rights  of  neutrals.  Don't 
take  an  attitude  from  which  you  can't 
withdraw  without  war.  I  would  make 
the  American  people  count  until  they 
get  over  this  bellicose  feeling." 

— New  York  Times,  May  14,  1915. 

Nathan  Straus  addressing  2nd  Conven- 
tion of  Laymen  s  Efficiency  League. 
"In  the  last  analysis  is  there  anything 
at  all  in  this  war  but  miserable,  con- 
temptible brawl  between  the  two  big- 
gest powers?     And  is  there  any  reason 
at  all  for  this  war  except  that  there  was 
no  concert  or  community  among  na- 
tions sufficiently  powerful  to  prevent  it? 
"Now,  the  power  to  do  this  thing — 
the    power    to    prevent    war — can    be 
achieved  only  by  the  most  thorough 
preparedness  on  the  part  of  the  nations 
that  want  peace  and  order  in  the  world. 
192 


APPENDIX 

This,  I  maintain,  is  the  overwhelming 
reason  why  America  should  have  a  pow- 
erful navy  and  a  strong  army,  and  the 
thorough  equipment  essential  to  the  ef- 
ficient use  of  this  power. 

"We  need  preparedness — not  to  fight 
battles,  but  to  prevent  battles  being 
fought.  We  need  preparedness,  not  to 
defend  this  nation  against  foes,  but  to 
compel  and  guarantee  world  peace. 
And  America  alone  of  all  the  nations  is 
in  the  position  to  make  such  use  of 
power  as  will  curb  and  control  the  bick- 
ering, jealous  nations  that  keep  this 
world  in  such  turmoil. 

"I  deny  emphatically  that  prepared- 
ness leads  to  war.  I  assert  with  deep 
conviction  that  thorough  preparedness 
on  the  part  of  America  will  be  the  best 
guarantee  that  the  world  can  have  that 
there  will  be  no  more  wars." 


APPENDIX 

"It  is  the  duty  of  our  Government, 
concentrated  on  the  welfare  of  the 
United  States,  to  make  such  prepara- 
tions and  authorize  such  expenditures 
as  will  save  us  from  the  experience,  the 
horrors  inflicted  upon  the  nations  of 
Europe. 

"I  believe  in  peace  and  that  it  can  be 
permanent;  to  work  for  peace  and  to 
strive  to  keep  it  when  at  last  we  get  it. 
That  is  our  duty.  To  prepare  this  na- 
tion vigorously,  fully,  against  war,  so 
that  no  nation  may  think  of  attacking 
us — that  is  our  duty.  And,  blessed  as 
we  are  among  the  nations,  in  peace,  in 
prosperity,  in  safety,  let  us  give  gen- 
erously to  the  less  fortunate,  and  prove 
ourselves  worthy  of  peace  and  its 
blessings.  That  is,  above  all,  our 
duty." 

— New  York  Times,  October  £0,  1916. 
194 


APPENDIX 

Mr.  Ford  condemns  War,  blames  Cap- 
italism. 

Asked  if  he  did  not  believe  that  the 
sentiment  for  preparedness  was  spread- 
ing throughout  the  country,  Mr.  Ford 
admitted  that  it  was,  but  insisted  that 
it  was  "transitory  and  doomed  to  ulti- 
mate abandonment." 

"This  growing  cry,  this  cringing  wail 
for  preparedness  is  one  of  the  most  das- 
tardly influences  ever  at  work  in  this  na- 
tion," he  said.  "It  is  a  snake  that  every 
clean,  decent-thinking  man  should  fight 
with  every  ounce  of  strength  there  is  in 
him. 

"Do  you  want  to  know  the  cause  of 
war — the  cause  of  murder  in  Europe, 
the  cause  that  will  bring  war  to  Amer- 
ica if  it  ever  comes?  It  is  capitalism, 
greed,  the  dirty  hunger  for  dollars. 
Take  away  the  capitalist  and  you  will 
195 


APPENDIX 

sweep  war  from  the  earth.  Take  it 
away  to-day  and  the  war  in  Europe 
will  stop  to-morrow.  Take  it  away  and 
the  world  will  have  seen  the  end  of  bar- 
barism." 

"Is  n't  that  rather  an  inconsistent 
sentiment  for  you  to  express?"  he  was 
asked.  "Are  n't  you  yourself  a  million- 
aire, a  man  of  whose  wealth  dominates 
other  men;  in  short,  a  capitalist?" 

He  smiled  broadly,  and  then  broke 
into  a  laugh. 

"My  dear  sir,  the  difference  between 
me  and  a  capitalist  is  that  I  earn  my 
living  honestly.     I  produce.  .  .  ." 
— New  York  Times,  November  15,  1915. 

Henry  Reuterdahl,  "Metropolitan 
Magazine"  December,  "Arm  or  Sur- 
render." 

"Our  patriotism  is  waning  and  drift- 
196 


APPENDIX 

ing  away  on  the  ebb  tide  of  indifference, 
and  as  a  nation  our  manhood  is  on  the 
decline;  national  conscience  we  have 
not.  No  longer  can  an  American  hold 
up  his  head  abroad.  Our  place  in  the 
world  is  that  of  a  money  bag.  In  Ger- 
many we  are  laughed  at,  despised  as 
spineless  weaklings;  our  money  alone 
is  feared.  England  thinks  we  are  cow- 
ards, and  American  life  a  commodity 
which  can  be  paid  for  in  cash.  The 
French  shrug  their  shoulders.  .  .  ." 

Invasion  by  an  European  power  he 
regards  as  ridiculously  easy. 

"Right  before  our  very  eyes,"  he 
says,  "our  navy  and  army  have  de- 
teriorated. So  far,  no  one  cares.  It 
has  been  demonstrated  and  proved  be- 
yond argument  that  the  American  navy 
is  not  strong  enough  to  maintain  the 
command  of  the  sea  and  uphold  the 
197 


APPENDIX 

Monroe  Doctrine.  With  the  Ameri- 
can fleet  swept  off  the  sea,  the  enemy's 
invasion  on  our  soil  becomes  but  a  mat- 
ter of  steamer  schedule.  Twice  this 
has  been  done  in  the  war  games  of  our 
own  fleet. 

"The  army  cannot  defend  all  its 
forts,"  he  continues.  "It  has  no  auto- 
mobiles to  transport  all  its  baggage ;  its 
shoes  are  for  the  parade  ground  and 
will  wear  out  under  two  months'  march- 
ing; it  has  nineteen  motor  ambulances 
for  its  wounded.  Its  supply  system 
cannot  stand  the  strain  of  war,  but  will 
break  down  as  it  did  during  the  Span- 
ish war.  It  is  without  ammunition 
trains,  armored  automobiles,  armored 
railroad  trains,  heavy  mortars  for  field 
work,  has  ammunition  but  for  a  couple 
of  days'  battle  and  with  less  than  one 
hour's  supply  for  coast  defense  guns, 
198 


APPENDIX 

and  has  not  sufficient  field  artillery. 
The  mobile  army  in  the  continental 
United  States  is  but  a  little  larger  than 
twice  the  New  York  police  force,  and 
its  reserve  counts  some  sixteen  men. 
It  masters  ten  aeroplanes,  all  of  which 
cannot  fly. 

"Practically  all  the  great  rifles  for 
coast  defense  are  from  the  design  of  the 
Ordnance  Department,  and  their  dis- 
appearing carriages  are  the  invention 
of  the  present  bureau  chief.  Many  are 
obsolete,  and  the  carriages  of  the  heavy 
guns  have  to  be  remodeled.  They  per- 
mit only  a  limited  degree  of  elevation 
and  through  faulty  design  good  guns 
are  rendered  inferior  in  range  to  those 
of  the  enemy's  ships.  For  want  of 
foresight  the  bureau  placed  this  handi- 
cap on  every  large-calibered,  direct- 
firing  gun  of  our  coast  defense  from 
199 


APPENDIX 

Maine  to  California.  The  pieces  are 
now  useless  against  the  latest  super- 
dreadnoughts  until  this  handicap  is  re- 
moved. 

"The  inefficiency  settled  upon  the 
army  by  Congress  and  the  army's  un- 
preparedness  for  war  is  visualized  by 
the  hopeless  and  pathetic  state  of  its 
Aviation  Corps.  America  is  the  land 
of  the  aeroplane.  Here  it  was  born, 
but  the  army  has  now  but  ten  machines 
— one  fell  recently  in  the  sea  and  killed 
its  aviator.  Our  loss  in  aviators  has 
proportionately  been  almost  as  heavy 
as  in  flying  corps  of  the  great  armies 
now  engaged  in  war. 

"The  American  army  is  trained  to 
travel  on  a  pillow.  Soldiers  must  go 
to  maneuvers  in  a  tourist  sleeper,  of- 
ficers in  Pullmans.  At  least  that  is  our 
peace  method.  To  the  Texas  ma- 
200 


APPENDIX 

noeuvers  a  regiment  was  ordered  from 
Indianapolis.  It  could  have  pulled  out 
in  six  hours,  reaching  its  destination  in 
thirty,  traveling  in  box  cars  as  in 
France  and  Germany.  But  this  regi- 
ment had  to  wait  three  days  for  tourist 
sleepers.  The  orders  to  move  came  in 
February;  not  until  four  months  later 
did  the  force  reach  its  maximum 
strength,  but  without  regiment  of  light 
artillery,  ambulances,  field  hospitals, 
engineers,  and  signal  force.  No  am- 
munition nor  adequate  supply  trains 
nor  transports  existed,  and  these 
regiments  never  reached  proper  war 
strength. 

'What  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?'  To  which  I  answer,  Trust  the 
army,  chuck  politics  sky  high,  again  put 
the  fear  of  God  in  Congress,  kill  the 
graft  of  the  useless  army  posts,  do  away 
201 


APPENDIX 

with  the  bureau  system,  and  let  the 
fighting  army  run  its  own  show,  accord- 
ing to  the  lines  laid  down  by  the  Gen- 
eral Staff.  They  are  trained  for  it; 
Congress  is  not.  Establish  a  Council 
of  National  Defense  so  that  the  army 
may  be  represented  on  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress and  the  demands  and  opinions 
of  the  efficient  soldier  may  be  heard 
throughout  the  land.  Give  it  a  budget 
system  as  exists  in  every  country  where 
defense  means  something. 

"Military  training  must  be  gen- 
eral. It  is  no  hardship  to  the  youth 
of  Switzerland  or  Australia.  Why 
should  it  be  to  ours?  On  the  other 
hand,  it  will  make  a  better  man  of  him, 
teach  obedience,  strengthen  his  undisci- 
plined character,  and  there  will  be  less 
use  for  slums  and  less  need  of  reforma- 
tories. The  day  of  the  small,  highly 
202 


APPENDIX 

trained  army  is  past.  A  small  army  is 
a  useless  expense — it  will  not  prevent 
attack,  and  when  attacks  come,  it  can- 
not resist.  War  demands  every  unit  of 
a  nation — even  down  to  the  humblest 
baker.  The  fighting  line  is  but  the 
edge  of  the  knife ;  the  steel  behind  it  is 
represented  by  the  resources  of  the  na- 
tion expended  with  fullest  unity." 

HERALD  BUREAU, 
No.  1,502  H  STREET,  N.  W., 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Sunday. 
Senator  Key  Pittman,  of  Nevada, 
newly   chosen   democratic  member   of 
the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  au- 
thorizes the  Herald  to  announce  to-day 
that  his  attitude  toward  national  pre- 
paredness   for   war  has   undergone   a 
complete  change  as  a  result  of  careful 
study    of    conditions    which    brought 
203 


APPENDIX 

about  the  conflict  now  in  progress  in 
Europe. 

When  he  came  to  the  Senate  three 
years  ago  Senator  Pittman  believed 
that  all  disputes  could  be  settled  by  a 
court  of  arbitration,  and  he  was  there- 
fore opposed  to  heavy  armament  for 
the  United  States.  He  has  now  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  "peaceful  settle- 
ment of  differences  between  nations  is 
impossible  so  long  as  such  nations  are 
suspicious  and  distrustful  of  the  mo- 
tives, honor  and  integrity  of  each 
other." 

Senator  Pittman  is  therefore  con- 
vinced that  the  United  States  should 
have  a  powerful  navy  to  prevent  war. 

IS  INVOLVED   COMMERCIALLY 

"The  United  States,"  said  Senator 
Pittman,  "while  not  involved  in  the 


APPENDIX 

European  war,  is  involved  both  politi- 
cally and  commercially  by  the  war,  and 
always  will  be  so  involved  by  great 
European  or  Asiatic  wars.  I  believe 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  people  of  the 
country  in  every  walk  of  life  and  the 
progress  of  the  government  are  abso- 
lutely dependent  upon  the  maintenance 
of  American  principles  and  the  protec- 
tion of  American  citizens  and  Ameri- 
can commerce  in  every  part  of  the 
world.  I  have  far  less  fear  of  an  inva- 
sion of  this  country  than  I  have  of  the 
destruction  of  the  lives  of  American 
citizens  and  American  commerce.  I 
am  not  an  advocate  of  a  large  standing 
army. 

"It  is  astounding  that  so  many  of  our 
citizens  do  not  realize  that  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  foreign  commerce  would 
bring  upon  our  country  a  most  dis- 
205 


APPENDIX 

astrous  calamity  that  would  extend  to 
every  industry  and  every  walk  of  life. 
The  prosperity  of  this  country  depends 
upon  its  ability  to  market  its  surplus 
products  abroad.  Deprive  us  of  that 
power  for  one  year  and  the  factories 
would  close,  the  mines  shut  down,  the 
farms  grow  up  in  weeds,  our  vast 
ranges,  now  stocked  with  fattening 
herds  of  cattle  and  horses,  would  be 
abandoned,  mortgages  would  be  fore- 
closed without  means  to  satisfy  and  a 
fifth  of  our  population  would  be  de- 
prived of  the  means  of  earning  a  liveli- 
hood. And  yet  it  is  within  the  power 
of  a  foreign  nation  or  a  group  of  foreign 
nations  to  bring  upon  us  such  a  calam- 
ity, and  who  can  say,  in  the  light  of 
present  events,  that  no  nation  or  group 
of  nations  would  have  the  desire  to  ac- 
complish such  a  purpose? 
206 


APPENDIX 

"In  my  opinion  the  only  way  that 
such  an  eventuality  would  be  prevented 
is  by  the  United  States  possessing  a 
sufficient  navy  to  make  such  an  act  too 
dangerous  to  any  foreign  Power  or 
group  of  Powers. 

"When  I  came  to  the  Senate  I  was  a 
strong  believer  in  the  creation  of  an  in- 
ternational tribunal  for  the  settling  of 
all  international  disputes.  The  prin- 
ciples enunciated  at  The  Hague  espe- 
cially appealed  to  me.  As  principles 
I  still  believe  that  they  are  correct,  but 
experience  has  conclusively  demon- 
strated that  they  can  only  be  enforced 
and  maintained  by  sufficient  force. 

"Any  tribunal  of  arbitration  will  be 
controlled  by  some  combinations  of 
Powers.  Would  any  of  the  warring 
nations  trust  their  disputes  to  a  court 
controlled  by  their  enemies?  If  so, 
207 


APPENDIX 

why  not  trust  their  disputes  to  their 
enemies  without  a  court?  Would  the 
Teutons  submit  the  questions  involved 
in  the  present  war  to  a  court  controlled 
by  the  Allies,  or  would  the  Allies  sub- 
mit the  questions  to  a  court  controlled 
by  the  Teutons?  Would  the  United 
States  submit  the  maintenance  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  to  a  court  controlled 
by  European  and  Asiatic  Powers?  To 
suppose  such  conditions  is  absurd. 

"Possession  of  a  powerful  navy  by 
the  United  States,  in  my  opinion,  does 
not  mean  war,  but  means  prevention 
of  war. 

"I  have  little  patience  with  considera- 
tions of  economy  when  the  vital  ques- 
tion of  the  life  and  peace  and  happiness 
of  our  people  is  involved." 

— New  York  Herald,  January  3,  1916. 

208 


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